


Skulduggery Pleasant: The Faceless Ones

by purplejabberwocky



Series: Skulduggery Pleasant: Dead Men Walking [4]
Category: Skulduggery Pleasant - Derek Landy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, The Dead Men
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-21
Updated: 2014-06-16
Packaged: 2018-01-26 00:00:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 28
Words: 91,033
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1667270
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/purplejabberwocky/pseuds/purplejabberwocky
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You've seen it all before: some bad guy wants to bring about the end of the world, and the Dead Men fight valiantly to stop it happening. Except the Dead Men aren't a team this time. This time, the Dead Men have split up.</p><p>And bad things happen when the Dead Men split up.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The scene of the crime

**Author's Note:**

> Spoilers for all books.

“This is not a good idea,” Dexter Vex muttered. He didn’t expect anyone to hear him, but Cameron Light glanced over with an expression crossed between agreement and stark terror. Remus Crux didn’t notice.

Then again, Dexter was of the opinion that Remus Crux couldn’t find his arse with both hands and a map. Actually, most people were of the opinion that Remus Crux couldn’t find his arse with both hands and a map—except, unfortunately, the one person who mattered.

“Why is he here?” Light asked in a low voice, watching Crux move around his small house with all the superciliousness of a man who thought he knew what he was doing. Neither of them were getting in the way, because the only time Crux was remotely tolerable was when they let him run off his mouth and he didn’t expect them to actually answer.

“Guild insisted on this being a joint investigation.”

“Guild’s not the one whose life is in danger,” Light muttered. “But it might be, if this keeps up. What’s wrong with your man Hopeless? We can’t keep on like this, Vex.”

“Descry’s doing the best he can,” Dexter said, a touch more defensively than he intended. “Guild’s got a right to hire his own detective.”

“That’s not what I meant,” said Light. “Why isn’t Hopeless Grand Mage yet? Everyone’s waiting for him to step up, and he’s not. Guild as Grand Mage would be better than this hung government we’ve got right now. It can’t go on.”

“Descry knows what he’s doing.”

“Much more of this, and I’m going to start doubting that.”

Dexter didn’t answer, partly because he didn’t want to and partly because he didn’t know _how_ to. Light didn’t know that Descry was a mind-reader. He didn’t know that there was a damn good reason why Descry was refusing to support Guild as Grand Mage, even though he hadn’t shared it with anyone—that he had, in fact, made sure no one knew. All Saracen had been able to say was that someone had ordered Guild to do something very bad and Guild had done it without a second thought. Which, admittedly, was a good reason to be concerned, but without any context it was hard to judge whether Descry was doing the right thing, let alone defend him to others. He certainly wasn’t objecting to Guild’s position as Elder.

But Light wasn’t precisely wrong. A hung government couldn’t lead a country properly, and it had been nearly six months. Dexter was all for Descry as Grand Mage—many people were. The problem was that Descry himself disagreed.

“I’ll ask him about it,” Dexter said at last, even though he didn’t need to. Descry was already powerful. He balked at adding to that power. The combination of mind-reading and being Grand Mage was an awfully dangerous one.

That, Dexter suspected, was why Mr Bliss hadn’t chosen a side. He didn’t have the foundation of having Descry save his life every single day. As far as Bliss was concerned, he could choose Guild, who was so subjective as to be ineffective to a good part of the community. Or he could choose Descry, who was a mind-reader and knew dangerous things about the most prominent sorcerers in the world. Or he could choose himself. And Bliss wanted to lead as much as Descry did—which was to say, not at all.

“Ask Bliss while you’re at it,” said Light, almost as if he was psychic too. “We’d accept him.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.” In among everything else, Dexter added grumpily. There were an awful lot of things he had to keep in mind lately, and some he didn’t want at all.

Crux came back into the room, dusting off his hands and glancing around with a faint air of disdain. “Safe as houses,” he announced. “Now, if we all attend to ourselves in the appropriate manner—” He shot a look at Dexter. “—you, Mister Light, will be perfectly safe.”

Dexter and Light exchanged looks, and then Dexter sighed and got to his feet, and went to the window to peer through it. It was curtained, because Dexter had won the argument that if the Diablerie were going to kill Cameron Light they would do it whether he was guarded or not; and if that was so, then there was no point in trying to pretend he _wasn’t_. Crux had seemed to believe that some kind of subterfuge was in order, as if this was an ambush and not protective custody. That, or he just wasn’t taking it seriously, which was far more likely. Guild still wasn’t convinced the Diablerie were even involved in the murders of the Teleporters, and that meant Crux wasn’t convinced either. They just refused to let themselves be kept out of the loop.

There was someone coming up the garden path. He was stocky, and wore a hat and scarf and a button-up coat, but his shoes were scuffed and his hands looked weathered. Dexter caught a glimpse of his face: average and lined, and square—the face of an older man. Dexter pulled back without too much urgency, to avoid the curtain from fluttering, and turned. “There’s someone coming to the door.”

Crux lifted an eyebrow. “The postman, perhaps?”

“He’s not wearing the postie uniform.” Light joined Dexter at the window and peeked through the curtain from the side. “Do you know him?”

“I know him,” said Light. “He is a mortal, though. He’s a representative for the local government; he’s been coming around every few months for the past couple of years, trying to get signatures, that sort of thing.”

“And you allow this?” Crux asked, raising an eyebrow.

“Yes,” Light said shortly without turning around. “He’s a good man, just trying to reach out to the community.”

“Of _mortals_.”

Light shot him a look. “I’ve lived here for twelve years. It’s my community too.”

Crux glared and sat back in the armchair, and looked away as if the issue was too trivial to argue.

“He can come back later,” Dexter said, pulling the curtain across. Light hesitated.

“This _is_ him coming back later. Listen, if he keeps showing up, isn’t that a risk? I mean, what if he gets caught in a crossfire? If I let him in today I can make sure he won’t come back again.”

“Absolutely not,” Crux snapped, but Dexter ignored him and considered. Light wasn’t wrong. If the man kept coming back, the Diablerie might see him as an opportunity. So long as one of them had Cameron in sight at all times, he would be safe. Presumably. Dexter was fairly sure Crux knew how to recognise a murder happening before his very eyes, at any rate.

“Let him in,” he said, nodding to Light. “See if you can’t finish your business quickly, though.”

Crux leapt to his feet as Light hurried toward the front door. “Detective Vex, I must protest!”

“You’re the one who wanted to pretend nothing suspicious was going on,” Dexter pointed out, and Crux frowned.

“There’s a difference between keeping the curtains drawn and letting a stranger into the house.”

“He isn’t a stranger; Light knows him. And if he keeps coming around to the house, he’s going to draw more attention, not less. Best to nip this in the bud early on.” Through the archway he watched Cameron open the door and greet the man behind it. “I’m going into the kitchen to keep an eye out. Try not to act suspicious.”

Crux looked him up and down, and his lip curled, and he brushed down his suit. “I rather think I’m less suspicious than _you_.”

Dexter didn’t bother to answer as he went into the kitchen. True, he was wearing jeans and a T-shirt that didn’t in the least bit hide his biceps, and the dogtags he’d worn while trying to drag Rover out of Russia during World War Two, and Anton had forced him into a chair to give him a haircut just last month. All told, he looked rather military. He also happened to know that Light’s mortal credentials included some administration time in the service, and that there was nothing at all strange about a visit from an old buddy.

Crux, on the other hand, stood out like a sore thumb. Light wore suits, but he wore suits without ties, and with his shirt untucked. He didn’t look like he’d willingly associate with someone like Crux. Crux was meticulous. He didn’t usually wear suits, so he looked like he was trying too hard while wearing one. He looked like he was on the scene because something was going to happen. He looked suspicious.

The kitchen offered the best view of the garden, being on a corner with a window in each wall. If the Diablerie were trying to avoid drawing attention from the neighbourhood, as they would, their best chance would be to attack from the rear. Dexter leaned against the kitchen table, just far enough back to avoid his being in direct line of sight from outside but still allow him a clean view through the windows. From the living-room he heard Light’s baritone, and Crux’s clipped tones, and the apologetically hen-pecked voice of the local representative.

Dexter frowned. Something was off. He didn’t try to search for why, because it would come on its own, but something rang … false. It was the dog from next door, he realised after a moment. The dog barked every time someone came up the drive anywhere within the radius of three houses, even if it knew them, but it hadn’t barked once as the representative came to the door.

Which meant that someone had made sure it couldn’t bark.

Which meant that—

Dexter vaulted over the table and threw it up as a barrier two seconds before the windows exploded inward, sending glass all through the room. Dexter winced at the sound of it splintering against the wood. There came two sets of feet hitting the floor—one set heavy and booted, and the other set lighter, making the debris clink instead of crack.

Murder Rose and either Gruesome Krav or Jaron Gallow.

Crux came pelting into the room, saw Dexter on the floor, and his eyes widened. “What on—”

With a hiss Dexter lunged at him and they both fell back into the hall a moment before a set of knives struck the lintel. Dexter rolled and dragged Crux back to his feet, and pushed him toward the living-room. He barked, “Guard Light!”

Crux straightened. “You don’t tell me what—”

Dexter gave him a shove into the room, ignoring his squawk, and turned. The kitchen door swung inward. He couldn’t reach it without presenting a target. He flicked his wrist and tried to conjure a barrier of his own, and watched bitterly as the magic fizzled into the air.

“Dear me.” Murder Rose leaned into the lintel and plucked her knives from the wood, and leered at him. “Looks like someone’s impotent. Would you like me to fix that for you, Dex Vex?”

“Pass,” said Dex, and blew up one of her knives as she threw it, and then thrust his other hand forward to aim for her with a bolt. Someone dragged her backward and the beam shot through the space, and then Gruesome Krav filled the opening, using one of the kitchen-cupboard doors as a shield. Dexter dropped and kicked his knee, and then rolled as Krav roared and slammed the door down on him. A moment later he was on his feet again between them and the living-room, and Krav was open, but a series of knives came flying over Krav’s shoulder. Dexter spread his hands and pushed and spun all at once. The knives caught in the shimmer of half-conjured magic and went with him, and he flung them off down the corridor where they dropped to the ground, their edges melting.

Krav’s fist was coming at his face. Dexter slid past it and planted his hand on the man’s chest, and blew him backward with a bolt of energy. He’d live. He was a strongman.

Dexter hated strongmen. Right now, he even hated Gracious just for being one.

He hoped Krav had got Murder Rose on his way back in, but then she was in the doorway with a dirk, and Dexter snatched up a nearby vase to block it. He realised just a little too late that she was using a stiletto as well, but it only dug into the pierce-resistant fabric of his T-shirt and the tip broke off, and his side throbbed where it had struck.

“Bloody hell,” muttered Murder Rose, and drew back so suddenly that the vase was yanked out of Dexter’s hands. Not that it mattered, because it fell to pieces as it did, leaving porcelain littering the floor. Dexter took those few seconds to brace himself before one of them came at him again.

He still wasn’t expecting Krav to shove the kitchen table through the wall.

Dexter instinctively flinched to avoid the plaster and bricks flying everywhere, and caught the edge of the table squarely in the chest. He slammed back against the wall hard enough to make him choke, and felt the wall groan behind him, and then it gave way and he was flung out into the room behind. The backs of his legs met with the sofa and he tumbled over it and hit the floor with a jarring thud. He tried to pull air into his lungs and couldn’t. He fought the darkness on the edges of his vision and forced himself to move through the paralysis of shock even though he really, really didn’t want to.

Using the sofa he managed to crawl to his feet, but something sharp was stabbing him inside his chest and that was really not a good sign. He looked up and saw Murder Rose sliding across the table through the Dexter-shaped hole and landing on her feet in the living-room, and made an executive decision. Time to go.

“Cam—” Dexter turned and saw Crux on the floor, yanking a knife out of Cameron Light’s back.

Crux looked up and saw him, and his eyes widened with panic. He scrambled to his feet and blurted, “This isn’t what it looks like.”

“Really?” Murder Rose looked down at him with an amused twist to her lips. “Because it looks like you just killed our target for us.”

“I—” Crux bristled, then saw to whom he was speaking, and bristled more. “You’re not meant to be here!”

Krav came through the door from the hall, brushing debris out of his silver hair. He and Murder Rose exchanged glances, and then Murder Rose started to laugh.

“I almost feel sorry for you,” said Krav to Dexter, and Dexter straightened with a wince, holding his side and the ribs he was fairly sure were at least cracked.

“So do I,” he agreed, and took a step back, and held his spare hand loose by his side, his palm backwards. His fingers warmed with magic. “Don’t suppose you could let us go, since your target’s dead now and all?”

“We _could_ ,” said Murder Rose with a shrug, “but it would be bad for our reputation if we _did_.”

“That’s what I figured.”

Dexter kicked the footstool at her and she cursed, her knives going wide. He blasted out the front window and whipped his hand up and blasted the ceiling too, and then turned and ran. For a moment everything was cursing and shouts and the house shrieking as half of it came down. He threw himself out the window, gasping at the stabbing pain in his chest and the glass cutting his face and arms, and the dust invading his lungs.

He hit the grass and rolled, and forced himself to his feet. His ears were ringing. Someone grabbed his arm and he seized their wrist and twisted hard and felt a snap, and belatedly recognised Crux’s voice screaming.

“Oops,” Dexter muttered, and risked a glance behind him. The front window was billowing dust and plaster, and the house was groaning, but people were starting to come out into the street now and the Diablerie didn’t follow them. Dexter released Crux and staggered toward his rented car, sitting on the curb.

“You broke my wrist!” Crux accused shrilly as he followed, clutching his hand to his chest.

“You surprised me,” Dexter mumbled as he eased himself into the driver’s seat, and waited just long enough for Crux to bundle himself into the passenger’s before gunning the engine and pulling away from the remains of Light’s house.


	2. The new school

St Mac Dara’s Community College was nothing like Valkyrie’s old school in Haggard. For one, it felt like it was practically as big as Haggard on its own. For another, there wasn’t nearly as much greenery as Valkyrie was used to, and a lot more buildings, and a lot more _people_. Too many people.

In Haggard Valkyrie had always felt distanced from her peers because she was nothing like them, and they were content to live small lives in a small town. She had never been content to live a small life in a small town. She had been, to borrow the phrase Saracen had used once, ‘a big fish in a small pond’.

Being at St Mac Dara’s Community College felt like being a big fish in a massive ocean. There were other, bigger fish. She was no longer special. She hadn’t even realised how proud she was of feeling special until they’d left Haggard. When she’d mentioned it to Rover, he had only laughed and said, “Welcome to the big wide wonderful world,” and then punched her in the jaw because she’d been too busy scowling at him to block.

Valkyrie sighed at the crush of students blocking the door ahead, then hunched her shoulders and forced her way onto the grounds along with what felt like half the school. This deep inside the campus there was the illusion of being in the countryside, and Valkyrie ducked into the trees instead of making for the parking-lot like the rest of the students were. Her ride wasn’t due for a little while yet.

It was stupid what she was about to do, and dangerous, and Valkyrie knew it. Her training hadn’t lapsed at all, either the magical or the physical, but she hadn’t seen Ghastly since before the Baron had attacked the reunion. On her birthday, a wrapped package containing a new training outfit and boots had shown up at their new house, but she hadn’t _seen_ him. She hadn’t seen Erskine since he helped pack up their house. She had seen Anton a few times, usually in Rover’s company but also for a few training lessons. She saw Saracen and Dexter and Descry at the Sanctuary nearly every day, and Rover at least twice a week if not more.

She hadn’t seen Skulduggery since the day he had come to say goodbye, except for glimpses in the hallways of the Sanctuary.

So even though Rover and Dexter and Tanith, and even Saracen and Anton, kept her magical education up to snuff, she still felt as if half her curriculum had been forgotten. As if she didn’t get nearly as much time to practise as she should. She missed Skulduggery with an aching wistfulness she hadn’t expected when she saw him last. Lord Vile was one of the bogeymen of the magical world, and Skulduggery _was_ him.

No matter how often she told herself that, she still missed him. And from the way the Dead Men she did see acted, they missed the others too.

Which meant that Valkyrie was here in the trees, at school, on public ground, and about to practice her magic. Before, she would have practiced conjuring fire. It was the easiest and most useful in a battlefield. Air was best for every-day tasks, but that meant she _used_ it every day as well, around the house. It was easy to practice at home. Her parents had gotten used to seeing small objects whizzing through the air. Her mother still objected to full bowls of cereal, at least until Valkyrie proved she could carry them without spilling anything, but her father very much appreciated the fact that no one had to get up to get the TV remote as long as Valkyrie was in the house.

Valkyrie dropped her bag onto a patch of grass between the roots of a tree and took a deep breath. She could conjure fire, and she could manipulate air. What she was going to do now, Skulduggery had told her, was something most Elementals didn’t bother to learn. For various reasons, all of the Dead Men Elementals had. She’d always meant to ask why. She never had, until it didn’t seem right anymore.

There was a sprout of flowers beside one of the bushes. Valkyrie looked at it and held out her hand and concentrated on feeling the humidity in the air, on that humidity condensing into water and drizzling onto the flowers. She saw mist gather and her heart leapt, but she kept concentrating, and—

“Aw, is a new girl out here all alone and sniffing the flowers?”

The boy’s voice made her jerk upright and spin around, and she was half pleased when she realised she’d made to fall into a defensive stance before stopping. There were three boys behind her, blocking her from view of the other students, and with another screen of trees between them. Even though she could still hear the other students laughing and talking and walking, she was effectively alone.

Valkyrie knew the three boys by sight. They were in the grade above, and bullies. They’d gone after new kids and weedy kids and geeky kids, and anyone they thought they could get away with pushing around without the teachers knowing. Part of her had been aching for a confrontation, but somehow Anton had known and he’d made her promise not to make trouble at school. Anton was not the sort of person you could refuse.

Then he’d sparred with her until she’d skipped dinner to collapse into bed and nearly missed the bus the next morning, but she felt less like she needed to pick a fight. Whenever she felt like picking a fight, Anton had told her, she should pick it with him or Rover instead.

_“Don’t go looking for trouble,”_ she remembered him saying. _“Trouble for the sake of trouble makes you look foolish and gets people killed.”_

There had been a very hard cast to his face when he said it, so that Valkyrie didn’t want to ask if there was a story behind it. But she had been careful, and kept her head down. Now the bullies were in front of her, and she kept her gaze locked on the sandy-haired one in the middle.

_“What happens if trouble comes to me?”_ she’d demanded.

Anton had given her an impassive glance, and then said, _“Kick it in the balls.”_

Actually, he generally told her to kick people in the knees because it was more crippling, but the statement had made her laugh. Either way she figured the teachers would object, so she said calmly, “Excuse me. I’m going to leave now.”

She bent to pick up her bag, still watching them, but when she went to move around them they blocked her way. She looked one of them in the eye, the reedy guy on the left, and waited until he shuffled and looked away.

_“Boys have weaknesses,”_ she remembered Rover saying. _“Most of them don’t know how to handle a woman who’s willing to look them in the eye and tell them they’re jackasses. Some of them will get aggressive. Some won’t. Either way, don’t prove them right by letting them think they’re all that.”_

“But we wanted to talk to you,” protested the other one, leaning on one of the trees and giving her what he probably thought was a dazzling smile. It wasn’t a bad smile, because he wasn’t bad looking, but Valkyrie had seen Erskine smile too many times to be impressed.

She almost crossed her arms and didn’t at the last minute. She needed her hands ready. Just in case. “Fine. Then talk.”

The three of them exchanged glances, as if this conversation wasn’t going anywhere near how they thought it would go, but then the reedy guy rallied, straightening his thin shoulders. “Wanted to ask you something.”

“You’re doing a fine job so far,” said Valkyrie, and he glowered at her for a moment before his gaze dropped.

“See, we have a problem,” said the boy who thought he was better-looking than he really was. “We don’t have any money for the bus, and we’re hungry, and we don’t have money for a late lunch, either.”

Seriously? Valkyrie looked at him with her best imitation of Anton’s impassive stare. “I’m still waiting for the question.”

“Oh, for God’s sake,” snapped the blond, stepping forward into her personal space. Valkyrie took a judicious step back so she had more space to manoeuvre. “Give us your cash, new girl, and we won’t slap your pretty face in.”

She was being mugged. At school. By three idiots only a year older than she was, if that. She looked at them coolly until the blond scowled, the reedy guy’s gaze shifted all around except at her, and the really-not-very-good-looking-at-all bloke frowned in confusion. Then she said, in the same calm but matter-of-fact tone she’d heard Anton use when dealing with Guild, “I still haven’t heard a question.”

The blond’s scowl turn into a glower and he stepped in again. “Then how about this. Would you like your face slapped?”

Valkyrie looked him squarely in the eye. “Not really. Would you like your face punched?”

The blond swore and swung. Valkyrie dropped her bag and leaned back and then took his arm and yanked him forward, and brought her heel down on the back of his knee so he fell face-first into the garden mulch. The reedy guy leapt at her and she pivoted and got him by the shoulder, and threw him over her hip. The not-good-looking guy grabbed her from behind and tried to pick her up. She slammed her head back against his nose and when his arms slackened she elbowed him in the solar-plexus, and then slammed her foot down on his instep. He groaned breathlessly and staggered back against the tree. The blond got to his feet so she left not-good-looking guy alone.

Blondie lunged at her, his fists swinging. She dodged them both and grabbed his arm and twisted it, and then shoved him so he fell into the weedy guy and knocked them both over again. The not-good-looking guy had caught his breath, but he was looking at her uncertainly. She grinned at him and slid into Tanith’s favourite unarmed pose.

“Come and have a go if you think you’re hard enough,” she taunted. Her blood was rushing all through her body. She liked that feeling.

Blondie had rolled off Reedy with a groan. Reedy was coughing from his friend’s weight, but he was pushing himself to his feet. “Who,” he gasped, “the hell are you?”

“Valkyrie,” said Valkyrie. “Valkyrie Cain. Now, are you going to be good little boys and run along, or are you going to pick another fight?”

“This isn’t over,” Blondie growled as he staggered upright.

_“See, boys have been told they’re all that for so long that they can’t let anyone find out they’re really not. Reputation means everything. It’s sad, but you can use that.”_

Valkyrie lifted an eyebrow. “What are you going to do? Tell on me? Go ahead. Then the whole school will know the three of you got beaten up by a _girl_. At once.”

“I didn’t wanna get involved in fights, man,” protested the Not-Good-Looking. Blondie hesitated. Reedy tugged on the back of his shirt, holding his cheek where he’d bruised it on a tree-root.

“Leave the bitch alone, come on.”

“I’m not the one going three-on-one stealing change from girls,” Valkyrie pointed out cheerfully in the exact same tone Rover would have. “If defending myself makes me a bitch, well, then.” She made her grin wider. “Woof woof. What does that make _you_?”

Reedy flushed. Blondie glared and backed away. Not-Good-Looking was already gone, and within a few seconds Valkyrie was alone in the little copse of trees. She dropped her stance and took a few deep gulping breaths, and then walked back and forth in the hollow until her knees had stopped shaking. She raised her hands and watched her fingers tremble, and realised she was still grinning. She dropped her hands and laughed. That had been _fantastic._

_“Don’t get too excited,”_ she remembered Anton warning whenever she got a new move down.

_“Don’t listen to him, get as excited as you want,”_ Rover had told her instead. _“Get all the excitement out and over with and_ then _you can go around being a grump-fuss.”_

Valkyrie laughed until her sides hurt and then took a deep breath and sat down facing the flowers she had been trying to water. “It’s not going to be that easy next time,” she said to the flowers.

_“Run through every battle after it’s over. Recognise why it went the way it did. Accept it will not go the same way next time.”_

“This time I was up against three guys only a year old than me.” She reached out and touched the nearest flower and rubbed its petals with her fingers. “They didn’t know how to fight and I did. And they didn’t know how to work together. Next time, the people I fight might be older or trained or there might be more of them. But that’s why I’m still training, so I’ll get even better, and then I’ll be able to protect myself against people who are trained too.”

She put her hand over the flower and felt her heart pounding, and her slight sweatiness from the excitement. She imagined that heat in the air making condensation, and the water gathering right under her hand, and falling, and then she was watching a fine drizzle coat the flowers.

Someone gasped and Valkyrie’s head snapped up and she looked around, but didn’t see anyone. She frowned. She had definitely heard a gasp. She scanned her surroundings more slowly. There was a tree, and another tree, and a part of wall high enough to sit on, and a bush … wait. Valkyrie looked back at the wall. It was the edge of a cordoned-off garden, but the part of it between the tree and the bush was clean of moss and sticks—like someone used it a lot.

No one was there now, so she started to look away again and then stopped. She couldn’t see anyone else around her, she argued, but she had definitely heard someone gasp. So evidence of an area that someone used a lot should be important. Why was she looking away?

Valkyrie looked back and this time _made_ herself keep looking. Her temples throbbed with the effort, but she was _sure_ she could see the outline of a person, a girl, sitting on the wall with her bag on her lap and—

“I know you’re there,” she said triumphantly, and then the magic snapped and there _was_ a girl there, sitting on the wall with her bag on her lap. She was a skinny girl, skinny and too tall for her body, with short hair and big eyes. Valkyrie vaguely remembered seeing her in a few of her classes.

“You’re a sorcerer,” blurted the girl.

“Of course I am,” said Valkyrie, getting to her feet and brushing off her knees. “How else could I summon water? What about you? What was that?”

She’d never heard of anyone who could just make people not see them like that. It had felt a little like China Sorrow’s magic, but less powerful, and instead of making her look, the magic made her not want to. But she could break it using concentration in nearly the same way.

The girl blushed. “It was just—I was … I was hiding.” The last came out mumbled, and she looked down at her bag, fiddling with the handle. “From … those three. They saw me in the halls so I came out here. I’m sorry. They probably saw you come in here because they were looking for me.”

“Don’t worry about it,” said Valkyrie, watching the girl. She’d never met anyone her own age who was a sorcerer. She’d known they must have existed, but she’d never actually stopped to think about it. “Have you always been able to do that? Hide in plain sight?”

The girl shrugged. “I just make people not notice me. I used to run away, and I was really fast—I was on the track-team in middle-school—but then they started cornering me in places I couldn’t run from, and it got easier to just make sure they couldn’t see me at all.”

“Do they try and steal money from you too?”

“They steal money from all the younger students, and the ones in their class,” she said, and she sounded depressed. “They do it so there’s no witnesses, and if you tell they come after you again, so no one wants to tell on them twice. I think some of the teachers know, but—”

“Since it’s your word against theirs, and everyone’s afraid to report it, they can’t do anything without the boys’ parents kicking up a fuss,” Valkyrie finished with a frown. It wasn’t the least bit fair, and two years ago she would have gotten angry, but after two years of helping Skulduggery and Dexter with the paperwork involved in solving crimes she knew it wasn’t as easy as everyone _knowing._ There had to be proof. Even Skulduggery, when he went out and did things that weren’t quite legal, agreed there had to be proof before criminals were brought in. And if no one spoke up, there wasn’t enough proof for the teachers to do anything without getting in trouble themselves. It was difficult to work a case if no one was willing to give information.

She reached down and picked up her bag. “I’m going to report it to a teacher,” she announced.

The girl scrambled to her feet. “I’ll come too,” she offered. “I’m a witness.”

Valkyrie shook her head. “You can’t. The boys didn’t see you, and there’s no way to see what happens in here unless you were in here too. They’ll call you a liar, and then my report won’t have any integrity.”

“What if the boys say you beat them up?”

Valkyrie shrugged. “They won’t. They won’t want it getting around school that I did. But I’m using my martial-arts training as extracurricular credit, so I should tell a teacher anyway. If I tell a teacher now, I can’t get into trouble later.”

Saracen was responsible for that one. _“Honesty is your friend,”_ he’d said. _“If you’re honest, people will trust you. And if you’re honest when you don’t need to be, people won’t assume you’re keeping secrets because of something terrible.”_

She’d thought it was pretty rich, seeing as he’d known Skulduggery was Vile for something like two centuries and never told anyone, but then Saracen had added that being honest about everything else made it easier to hide the _real_ secrets.

They came out of the trees and enough of the students were gone that they could go back into the school building without having to fight against the crowd. The girl trotted just behind Valkyrie like a really tall puppy. “You said your name is Valkyrie Cain,” she said. “You’ve chosen your taken name already?”

“Yep,” said Valkyrie. “Have you?”

“No,” the girl admitted softly. “None of the other kids have either, I think. We kick it around a bit at the club, but—”

“Wait a minute.” Valkyrie stopped and turned and stared at the girl, and something in her stomach turned over with excitement. “There’s a _club_? For magic? Here at the school?”

The girl gave her an odd look. “Of course. Isn’t that why your parents enrolled you here? Mac’s got the biggest ratio of magical kids in Dublin.”

“No, Mum had to get advice before—” Advice, Valkyrie realised abruptly, that she’d gotten from Hopeless. Valkyrie rolled her eyes and turned to head on to the office. “That’s bloody typical, that is.” Of course he wouldn’t tell her _why_ this school was the best. He liked leaving people to figure things out for themselves. Dexter had explained once that it made more of an impact in their psyche that way. Valkyrie thought it was just an excuse to be all mysterious.

“So if you’re in a club, why aren’t the other magical kids helping you with the bullies?” she asked.

Another odd look. “Why would they?”

“Because you’re in the same club, and generally speaking people in clubs should stick together,” Valkyrie said, a little slowly because the girl seemed to have strange ideas about how the world ought to work.

Something changed in the girl’s expression. Like she’d made a realisation that made her feel older and more knowledgeable. It wasn’t pity, which was the only reason Valkyrie didn’t walk away, but something quiet and sad. “Your parents are both mortals, aren’t they?”

Valkyrie frowned. “No. Well, yes. My dad’s magical, but he grew up mortal and he’s decided to stay with my mum, because she hasn’t got a drop of magical blood in her. Why?”

“Because you can’t have been in the magical community for long,” said the girl, “if you think that’s how it works.”

“I’ve been in it for over two years,” Valkyrie snapped, and the girl hunched her shoulders.

“No offence. It’s just that—if you can’t take care of yourself, your magic isn’t strong enough. If I can’t stop those boys from bullying me, then I need to get stronger on my own. Otherwise it doesn’t mean anything.”

“That’s the stupidest thing I ever heard, and my tutors would say the same,” said Valkyrie flatly as they rounded the corner into the office-area, and couldn’t talk anymore. She told the secretary what the boys had done, and then the secretary called in the vice-principal, so she told the vice-principal what the boys had done. When the vice-principal asked how she had made them go away, she said she had been taking self-defence classes, and that they were on her record as extra-curricular activities, and the boys had tried to hit her so, please, didn’t he think it was justified?

When the vice-principal asked Valkyrie’s new friend why she was there, Gail—that was her name—had quietly said she’d seen the boys come out of the trees and they looked alright to her, just a little shaken up, but she had been worried about what they’d been doing in there.

Notes were taken and records were checked and it took a lot longer than Valkyrie thought it would, so by the time they came out into the sun again she was cranky and certain she’d missed her ride. It was Wednesday. Rover was meant to pick her up, but last time she’d been late he assumed she’d gone for ice-cream and left again. It had turned out okay, because when she texted him he had come back and _actually_ taken her for ice-cream, but she knew she couldn’t rely on him to wait when there was an ice-cream parlour just a couple of blocks away.

This time, when she checked her phone all she saw was a text from him saying:

_‘Dex got himself blown up_

_Catch the bus_

_See you soon toodles!_

_OOOOOO’_


	3. Gail

“What’s wrong?” Gail asked when she saw Valkyrie’s face.

“Friend got hurt and my ride can’t pick me up,” said Valkyrie shortly, and shoved her phone into her pocket. “Do you know which bus gets to the Sanctuary from here?”

She wasn’t expecting much help, but Gail said immediately, “Yes. The next one should be here in about ten minutes, at the stop just down the road. But why do you need to go there? The Sanctuary wouldn’t let school-aged sorcerers like us inside.”

“My mother works there,” Valkyrie explained, turning down the path toward the bus-stop. Some other kids were still hanging around there, waiting. Gail followed.

“I thought you said your mother was mortal,” Gail said blankly.

Valkyrie frowned. She’d always thought that word was a little off, but she’d gotten used to using it after a couple years of being apprenticed to the Dead Men. Then Mum had started working at the Sanctuary, and suddenly Valkyrie had found herself thinking about it again. Most people at the Sanctuary didn’t know Mum was mortal. They assumed she was a sorcerer. The first time it had really sunk in, how sorcerers regarded mortals, was when Valkyrie and her mother had gone out to dinner one day after school. They had been forced to walk with a sorcerer going in the same direction who kept talking about ‘mortals this’ and ‘mortals that’ as if they were amusing intelligent puppies.

Since then Valkyrie had paid very close attention to how sorcerers used the word, and it made her uncomfortable when they did. Fine, so her mother was mortal. They didn’t have to act all big and mighty over it. Technically speaking, sorcerers were mortals too.

“She is,” Valkyrie answered, trying not to be snappy but knowing she sounded tense anyway.

“But the Sanctuary doesn’t hire mortals.”

“Descry Hopeless does. She’s his assistant.” Dad already had offices in the city. He could keep his business when they moved. But Mum had to quit her job and Hopeless needed someone on hand to translate for him. She wasn’t exactly fluent in sign-language yet, but she and Valkyrie were learning together. Pompous sorcerers aside, Valkyrie was pretty sure she was having more fun in her new job than her old one, even though her old one hadn’t been bad.

Gail stopped short on the sidewalk and Valkyrie turned to face her, raising an eyebrow at her. Gail squeaked, “Your mother works for a Dead Man?”

Valkyrie resisted the urge to smile. “They’re friends of the family,” she explained. “They knew my uncle, and when he died they kind of adopted the rest of us. Rover Larrikin was meant to pick me up for training this afternoon, but Dexter Vex got hurt on this case he’s working. Rover asked me to meet him at the Sanctuary instead. I guess Dex is there too.”

“You’re _being trained by the Dead Men?_ ” Gail’s voice went up even higher than before.

Valkyrie shrugged modestly, trying not to let on how pleased she really was. “I guess. Well, yes. Rover takes me every Friday for training, and usually Tanith Low is there as well, but he takes me at least one other day a week too.” She really didn’t mind if the days changed, because it kept things interesting, but he insisted she at least try and kick his arse on Fridays. She had, after all, sworn an oath. “Otherwise after school or on weekends I go to help out at the Sanctuary.”

A lot of the time it was just running errands for Descry and Mum, but Dexter and Saracen insisted she keep up to snuff on her paperwork and the mechanics of the Sanctuary, even though it bored her to tears. Usually Saracen brought cookies or ice-cream, which helped, and a lot of the time Tanith came along, so if they got too bored they could do some training instead.

It was useful, though. Knowing the rules. The new detective, Crux, had once tried to get her ejected from the Repository because of her age, but two days beforehand she’d read a by-law about the use of apprentices as runners. She didn’t care about stupid rules, but it was funny watching the people who did care go purple when they realised they couldn’t do what they liked because of them. Now she knew why Descry had insisted they go through that weird ‘ceremony’ which included signing some kind of apprentice contract. Really it was just an intent to teach her, with witnesses, and no one had bothered to use them since before Skulduggery had been born, but apparently under magical law it was good enough to stand up to legalities. Guild couldn’t argue to have her banned from the Sanctuary because of some really old law everyone else had forgotten about. It was hilarious.

Rover and Saracen had bought pizza to celebrate her victory over the stodgy law-makers. Then the Administrator had kicked them out of the Repository for having food around the dangerous powerful magical artefacts. It’d been fun.

Gail was still staring at her, and there was something very close to awe in her expression. It kind of made Valkyrie feel uncomfortable, so she was glad when she heard a rumble and turned and saw the bus arriving. “Come on.”

They couldn’t talk until they were on the bus and surrounded by the other students chattering loudly. It was only then that Valkyrie asked, “So how did you know this bus goes to the Sanctuary, anyway?”

It didn’t make much sense if Gail didn’t think they’d be allowed in to begin with. Gail flushed, and the extra colour in her cheeks made her look a little less ghostly than she had since they’d been under the cover of the trees. Valkyrie wondered if it was her natural colouring or a side-effect of making people think she didn’t exist.

“My mother works at the Sanctuary too,” Gail mumbled. “I’ve gone to meet her after school sometimes, before the Waxworks closed down.”

“What does she do?” Valkyrie asked, interested in spite of herself. She’d never considered other magical kids before, or what their parents might do with their time.

Gail shrugged. “Just … stuff. Administration. Stuff.”

“She’s not the Administrator, is she?” It was only half meant to be a joke. The Dead Men had decided to let the Administrator stay on so they could feed her fake information, hoping it would help them get to the Diablerie. They hadn’t told her how well it was working, but since they hadn’t _found_ the Diablerie yet, she was guessing ‘not well’.

Gail just shook her head, and since she really didn’t seem like she wanted to talk about it, Valkyrie changed the subject. “What do you do in the club? Where is it? Can I join? The school doesn’t know about it, do they?”

“No,” said Gail with a slight smile. “They just think it’s a club for discussing fantasy. Like, those Magic trading cards, and stuff. It’s awkward when we get kids in who just want to talk about that, but usually they leave again and I think they’ve got their own club now. A few years ago our club almost got disbanded because the school didn’t think the kids then were adding to or using their education like the clubs should, so they staged a fake magic show and now we’re classed under ‘entertainment’. Every now and then we have to come up with something to prove we’re doing something in club-time, but otherwise we just …” She shrugged. “You know. Sit. Talk. Practice.”

Valkyrie waited for her to go on, but she didn’t, and after a moment Valkyrie said sceptically, “That’s it? Just … talk? You don’t have a regular routine for practises? How do you practise? Who oversees you?”

“Mostly we oversee ourselves,” Gail said softly, “but if the school requires us to have a supervisor, it’s usually one of our parents.”

“And other than that you just … make stuff up or gossip?”

The flush built slowly. “It sounds silly, doesn’t it?”

“No, it doesn’t,” Valkyrie lied quickly. “I’m just surprised, that’s all.”

Gail shook her head, and gripped the chair in front as they went over a rough patch of road. “Of course it sounds silly to you. You’re a real apprentice. You’re a real apprentice to the best sorcerers in the _world_.” The envy in her voice made Valkyrie flush, but it was with something very close to guilt, and she didn’t like the feeling.

“Why aren’t you?” Valkyrie asked. “I mean, I know the contracts aren’t used anymore, but—”

“You have a legal _contract_?” Now Gail looked startled.

“I thought it was stupid at first,” Valkyrie admitted, “but it gets me into places in the Sanctuary I wouldn’t be able to without a lot more arguing. Descry says the contracts fall in and out of favour. They used to be sort-of like slave contracts, and then sorcerers just used to take what they called apprentices by calling out young sorcerers who hadn’t taken their name, and then once taken names became widespread sorcerers started using a verbal honour system you could rely on, but now you can’t rely on it anymore because of all the red-tape and technicalities, so it was better if we—”

She stopped at the slightly frazzled look on Gail’s face, and smiled sheepishly. “Sorry. They make me read up on a lot of old history. It’d be boring, but Descry wrote a lot of histories and he’s a good writer.”

She’d tried some of the books in the Sanctuary library and nearly fallen asleep each time, except for when Rover read them out in a variety of silly voices, and that usually meant she didn’t remember what he said because she was too busy laughing. In the end Descry had brought in some of his gorgeous hand-made books. He stored a lot of them in his office in the Sanctuary now, and Valkyrie was allowed to go in and borrow them whenever she wanted.

“You have a legal contract,” Gail repeated. Her look of envy increased. So did Valkyrie’s absurd feeling of guilt.

“Why don’t any of you become apprentices?” she asked. “Even if your parents don’t have time to train you, there must be some sorcerers out there willing to get paid for it.”

Gail shook her head. “Apprenticing isn’t like education today, Valkyrie.” She said the name a little tentatively, like it was something precious she wasn’t sure she was allowed to share. “It’s not something for which the master gets paid. When you become an apprentice, it’s to be trained in a specific line of work. There isn’t usually time to go to school and be an apprentice at once, and under Ireland’s laws today, we’re too young to work without attending school. It’s too hard to balance the two, so most sorcerers our age finish school first, and since they’re already equipped to work mortal jobs by then, that’s what they do. Magical training has to be something that happens in secret, on the side. It’s the only way we can fit in without attracting attention.”

“… Oh.”

Never before had Valkyrie felt so keenly out of place. In Haggard, she’d been secure in her feeling of being special, of being magical. There were a lot of things she didn’t know, but the Dead Men either filled in the gaps or gave her the means to fill it in herself. Now she was finding that her life was special even by magical standards. It at once made her feel all glowy inside and guilty as heck.

“How _do_ you manage it?” Gail asked, and Valkyrie blinked at her. “Juggling school and your apprenticeship at once?”

“It’s hard,” Valkyrie admitted, “and boring a lot of the time, and it takes a lot of scheduling, and I don’t have much spare time, but I have a lot of help. Most of my spare time I wind up practising magic or martial-arts anyway. And my homework’s easy when I’m at the Sanctuary and can ask any one of half a dozen people for answers. I can finish it faster and get onto more important things that way.” She shrugged a little uncomfortably. “Otherwise my apprenticeship is just about the physical and magical training, or learning the paperwork. They get me to research some things for them, but I’m also learning how the Sanctuary works, and the laws, and the equipment.”

“It sounds wonderful,” Gail said wistfully.

Valkyrie didn’t answer. She was too busy telling the guilt to go away, and trying not to let the pride take over. She wasn’t quite sure she wanted to know more about the club yet, either, so they both remained silent until the bus reached the stop just down from the Waxworks Museum. Then she got to her feet and made a split-second decision, and tugged on Gail’s arm. “Come on.”

“What?” Gail looked up at her with that startled expression of someone surprised out of their thoughts.

“You can come with me,” Valkyrie insisted. “Descry won’t mind. Come on, before the driver closes the doors.”

She bundled Gail out of her seat and out of the bus and onto the pavement, and pulled her along toward the Waxworks Museum.

“I don’t have a reason to be here,” Gail whispered as they went around the back to get inside the building without being seen from the street.

“You’re visiting your mum,” Valkyrie told her.

“My mum doesn’t like me visiting her at work.”

“Then you’re visiting mine,” Valkyrie said impatiently, stopping in front of Phil Lynott, the new fake doorman. “Valkyrie Cain and friend.”

The wax figure turned its head at them and Gail jumped with a squeak. “Hello, Valkyrie,” it said. “What is your friend’s business?”

“Just being a friend,” Valkyrie said with a shrug. “If her mum’s working, she might visit her. Or she might come to training with me. Or we might do homework together. I don’t know, what does it matter? Can you open the door please?”

“What’s your mother’s name?” asked the wax-figure.

“Macha Morrígna,” Gail whispered.

Phil nodded. “I know her. You are in Valkyrie Cain’s company. You may enter.”

The door opened and Valkyrie turned to Gail. “See? Told you it would work. Come on, I want to see what Dex did to himself this time.”

“Dexter Vex returned to the Sanctuary this morning with broken ribs, plaster inhalation and severe lacerations due to broken glass,” said Phil Lynott.

“Rover said he’d blown himself up,” Valkyrie said. “Do you know where they are now?”

Phil shrugged in that oddly fluid way. He’d been practising. Valkyrie found it creepy. Skulduggery was the only one allowed to move like that. “I am unaware of the details. They are in the Grand Mage’s office. Would you like Detective Crux’s condition as well?”

“Not really. Thanks, Phil.” Valkyrie took Gail’s hand and dragged her downstairs. There were a few sorcerers in the main hall, but either they didn’t pay any attention to the two girls or just waved at Valkyrie as she passed. She waved back and made a bee-line for the Grand Mage’s office, dragging Gail with her. The Grand Mage’s office didn’t belong to anyone right now, so they used it as neutral ground for things the Elders didn’t want to get spread around the Sanctuary as rumours. Valkyrie was pretty sure it was a show of strength for both sides. There was nothing wrong with the meeting-room they’d used all the times before. She wasn’t usually allowed in, but Dexter was one of her sponsors, so in this case she knew she would.

The door was open, and as they approached she heard Guild’s tight, frustrated voice.

“—tremendous waste of expense.”

“ _Tremendous_ waste?” Dexter said, sounding breathless. “What part of putting a man under protective custody was _tremendously_ wasteful, Guild?”

“Don’t talk,” said a woman’s voice, someone Valkyrie knew but whose name she couldn’t quite remember. She was a doctor attached to the Sanctuary, though. Not as good as Kenspeckle, but good enough that the Dead Men were willing to let her work on them when Kenspeckle wasn’t available for some reason. Valkyrie wasn’t quite so sure yet.

“The part,” said Guild, “where you both failed.”

“He broke my hand,” Crux whined.

“I said I was sorry,” Dexter muttered. The healer sighed. Valkyrie was fairly sure her name rhymed with ‘doctor’ somehow.

“You did no such thing.”

“Then that’s what you get for creeping up behind a man who just got shoved through a wall by a kitchen table. Crux, you’re lucky I didn’t _arrest_ you.”

“I didn’t do anything!”

“I left you with Light and the next thing I knew I saw you yanking a knife out of his corpse. The circumstances, as they say, are somewhat suspicious.”

“And I’m sure we are all aware that visual circumstances do not immediately represent the truth,” Guild snapped.

“It’s so vindicating to know that you’re broad-minded enough to recognise things aren’t always what they seem, Elder Guild,” said Saracen. There was a pause, and then he said quickly, “I was quoting. I was quoting what Descry said. Melissa, wasn’t I quoting?”

“Yes,” said Valkyrie’s mum. “Thank you. I didn’t quite get some of the gestures.”

“Of course we’re all aware,” said Dexter. “That’s why I didn’t arrest him. I have every faith in Remus’s inability to plan a murder.”

Valkyrie grinned and knocked on the door, and poked her head through. Dexter was propped up on Morwenna’s old sofa, pillows behind his back. His face, hands and arms were criss-crossed with half-healed cuts, and his chest, where it wasn’t covered by cloths damped by some kind of healing aid, was mottled with bruises. She couldn’t help noticing that, aside from the bruises, it was a very nice chest. She’d seen him without his shirt one once or twice before, but she always forgot how nice a chest it was until she saw him again.

The doctor was sitting beside him. Crux was in a chair nearby, covered in dust and looking extremely grumpy, and with his hand in a bowl. Guild and Saracen and Descry were all around the table brought in for their use, in front of Morwenna’s desk, and Valkyrie’s mother stood at Descry’s elbow with a clipboard. They all turned to look at her when she put her head in, so she waved and said, “Hi.”

Her mother and Descry smiled back.

“Val, hi,” Saracen said cheerfully. He was sprawled in an armchair. “You’re late.”

“Someone forgot to pick me up,” Valkyrie said with a roll of her eyes, stepping properly into the room and vaguely aware of Gail hovering behind her. “Where’s Rover?”

“He said he needed to get something important for your training today,” said Mum, “and you should meet him in the gym.”

“What happened to you?” Valkyrie asked Dexter. “Rover said you got blown up.”

Guild frowned, but it was Crux who answered while trying to sit upright and dignified. “That is not the business of young ladies who insist on—”

“She’s my apprentice who has a right to know why I can’t help out with her training, so shut it,” Dexter growled.

“You said you got shoved through a wall by a kitchen table.”

“Technically, Gruesome Krav was on the other side of the table,” Dexter muttered.

“If you hadn’t been wearing enchanted clothing your spine would be a wreck,” said the doctor, peeling off the saturated cloths and tossing them into a bowl. “Try not to do it again.”

“It’s not an experience I want to repeat, Doc, trust me.”

“What happened to Light?”

Guild turned to Descry and demanded, “How much _does_ she know about this case?”

Descry shrugged and signed, and Valkyrie’s mother translated for him, a little haltingly because she was still getting the hang of sign-language. “Everything Dexter and Skulduggery know, I imagine.”

“Do you not understand the meaning of the words ‘need to know’?” Guild asked Dexter with a steely edge in his voice.

“She’s the one who’s doing the research on the MO,” said Dexter, “so yes, I understand the meaning of the words, and she needs to know. How’s that going, by the way?”

Valkyrie shrugged. “Nothing even remotely similar in the last two decades.” She made a face. “I’m going to have to go deeper.”

“Oh, you poor thing,” said Saracen. “The Sanctuary records are dark and scary things. And dusty.” He shuddered. “Better you than me.”

“That’s what apprentices are for,” said Dexter, leaning back on his pillows and closing his eyes. His breathing was very, very careful, Valkyrie noticed. “But right now you’ve got a training session to get to.”

“And then homework to do,” Mum added.

“And then Saracen can help you find more of those records,” Dexter finished.

Saracen squawked. “Oy!”

Valkyrie grinned, turned to leave and then turned back again to ask quickly, “Can Gail visit her mum?”

“Who?” Guild asked, as Descry nodded and motioned that it was fine with _him_ , if Guild had no objections.

“Gail,” Valkyrie said, and reached behind the door to tug her new friend into the spotlight. Gail squeaked, promptly went red and looked at the floor, clutching her bag. “Her mum works here but she doesn’t get much chance to visit her at work. Can she?”

“Who’s your mother?” Guild asked her, still brusque but a lot more calmly than he’d ever asked Valkyrie anything.

“Macha Morrígna,” Gail whispered, nearly inaudible. Guild looked surprised. So did Dexter, enough that he tried to sit up again until Doc put her hand on his shoulder.

Descry, through Valkyrie’s mum, was the one who answered. “She’s probably in the gym already anyway. Go ahead.”

“Of course,” said Guild, and that was so surprising that Valkyrie had to stop and stare. So, apparently, did Crux. Guild caught Valkyrie’s expression and said irritably, “Go. Just go. This is no discussion for children.”

“Doesn’t that mean Crux has to leave too?” Saracen asked innocently, and Valkyrie coughed so she didn’t laugh, grabbed Gail’s arm and dragged her back down the hall toward the gym.


	4. Doing the research

The closer to the gym Valkyrie and Gail got, the slower Gail walked, and when they finally entered, Gail stopped entirely. Valkyrie assumed it was because of the Cleavers training all across the room. Wherever she looked, she saw grey shirts. Most of them had fabric veils too. Tanith told her it was to help them get used to wearing visors no matter what, and to help maintain their anonymity.

“It’s okay, it’s just the Cleavers,” she told Gail, tugging her deeper into the room. “They’re kind of creepy, but you get used to it. They won’t bother us. I’ve trained with them in the room loads of times.”

At first she had felt nervous, because she messed up a lot and it was hard training when she had people around her doing so much better. But none of them showed they cared or even noticed, and eventually the paranoia had worn off. Maybe that was why Rover insisted they did their training at the same time.

Valkyrie scanned the room, but she didn’t see Rover anywhere. She did see Tanith, though, sparring with a woman in grey who was one of only a few people in Cleaver uniform whom Valkyrie had ever seen not wearing a veil. Valkyrie worked her way around the mats until she was facing Tanith, waited until there was a pause in the action, and then waved. Tanith broke off her form and said something to the woman, and then they both moved toward the nearest bench. Grinning, Valkyrie went to join them.

“That was awesome,” she said to Tanith. “I don’t get to see you spar enough with other people.”

“You’re just easily distracted,” Tanith teased, wiping off her face with her towel. Her sparring partner was frowning, though, and staring past Valkyrie, so Valkyrie turned to see what she was looking at and saw Gail, standing awkwardly ten feet away and staring at the floor.

“Oh, yeah,” she said quickly, turning toward the woman. “That’s my friend Gail, she’s just here to visit her mum. Des—Elder Hopeless said it was okay.”

The woman looked at Valkyrie, and Valkyrie wished she hadn’t. She had very sharp eyes. She wasn’t bald, but her dark hair was very short. She reminded Valkyrie a lot of Mr Bliss. “I know who she is,” said the woman. “She’s my daughter.” Valkyrie blinked and the woman glanced back at Gail and raised her voice. “Gail, come here.”

Gail came, dragging her feet and clutching her bag. “Hi, Mum,” she mumbled, and her cheeks where whiter than Valkyrie had seen them. She stared. This was Gail’s mother?

Macha Morrígna sighed and crossed her arms. “You came here to visit me?”

“Elder Hopeless said it would be okay,” Gail whispered.

Macha shook her head and then managed a smile, and it looked strange but genuine. Valkyrie couldn’t remember ever seeing Mr Bliss smile.

“This is your mum?” she blurted, and they both turned to look at her.

“Valkyrie Cain,” said Macha, in nearly the same tone Mr Bliss did, and to fight off the shiver Valkyrie lifted her chin rebelliously.

“Yeah.”

Macha grinned, and for just a moment Valkyrie saw a shadow of a carefree woman. “Your breathing rhythm’s off.”

Without waiting for an answer she turned and took Gail’s arm and led her away, and left Valkyrie blinking. Then she turned to Tanith. “That was Macha Morrígna?”

“Tell the truth,” said Tanith, grinning, “you didn’t know who she was before you entered the room.”

“No. I just knew that was the name of Gail’s mum.”

“Right, Gail.” They both glanced toward Gail and her mother. They stood close and spoke quietly, but Macha seemed to be insisting on something and Gail was shaking her head. “How did you meet her?”

“She’s in my grade at school. Tanith, I don’t get it. I thought Cleavers weren’t allowed to have families.”

“They aren’t,” said Tanith, “but Macha isn’t a Cleaver. At least, she isn’t anymore. A Cleaver’s tenure only lasts ten years. When the conditioning is removed most of them wind up changed, and can’t handle going back into normal work. Most of them become Rippers, which are a lot like Cleavers but far more vicious and less disciplined, or they go into other martial jobs. Either way, they’re really reclusive, so most sorcerers don’t see them much.”

Valkyrie watched her new friend and her friend’s mother. Macha was tall and muscular, and very straight-backed, but Gail hunched and hugged herself. Whatever she was refusing was making Macha exasperated, but Gail wasn’t backing down. Valkyrie could kind of see how they were related that way.

Tanith was still talking. “Macha told me once that she nearly became a Ripper too. Then one of her flings wound up with her pregnant, and she managed to pull herself up out of her rut and applied for a job helping to train the Cleavers here instead. Nowadays she heads all their training.”

“She reminds me of Mr Bliss,” Valkyrie muttered.

Tanith hesitated. “Don’t spread it around, but Mr Bliss was a Cleaver. That’s why he usually deals with them.”

“Oh.” That made an awful lot of sense, now she had someone to compare him to. Macha moved and acted a lot like he did. “But he’s got family too, doesn’t he? He’s got China, even if they seem to hate each other.”

“Mr Bliss was a Cleaver a long time ago,” said Tanith, “back when China was still on the other side. I suppose he felt he had nothing to lose by receiving the conditioning.” She shrugged. “Anyway. Hasn’t Rover come back yet? He said he wouldn’t take long.”

“Yodel-ay-he-hoo~!”

Valkyrie jumped. Tanith spun. Rover stood behind them, cackling like a loon.

“That wasn’t funny,” Valkyrie snapped, scowling.

“Your faces,” was all Rover managed, right before Macha walked up to him and rapped his head with her knuckles.

“Idiot,” she said, and looked down at the box of doughnuts in his hand. “You’re not allowed to bring doughnuts into my training room.”

“Uh uh uh.” Rover grinned and rattled the doughnuts. “It’s _my_ training-room too. See? My student’s here and everything. Two students. I have two students? Oh, well.” Rover shrugged, handed the icebox in his other hand to Macha, shoved past Valkyrie and Tanith and reached into the doughnut-box with a napkin to give Gail a doughnut. “Here, you look sad. Have a doughnut. Tanith, I’m giving my second student your doughnut.”

“That’s okay,” Tanith said with a shrug. “I didn’t want one anyway.”

“That’s my daughter you’re giving her doughnut,” Macha muttered.

“Is it?” Rover stood back with pursed lips and looked Gail up and down. Gail blushed fiercely and held the doughnut like she wasn’t sure what to do with it. “You need to feed her more doughnuts, Macha. She’s too skinny. Val, why don’t I know my new student’s name yet?”

“Gail,” Valkyrie said, and now she was grinning. “This is Gail. Gail, this is Rover Larrikin.”

Gail squeaked and her eyes went very wide, and her blush deepened.

“Aww, you’re adorable,” Rover cooed. “I’m gonna give you a hug.” He hugged Gail from the side, making sure not to squash her doughnut. Gail’s eyes went so wide Valkyrie was sure she was going to faint.

“Larrikin, let go of my daughter before she explodes,” said Macha.

Rover held her tighter and laid his cheek against her head. “Macha, I’m stealing your daughter.”

Gail squeaked. Macha sighed. “You can _borrow_ her, and if you want to train her, be my guest. In the meantime, I’m getting back to my own students and ignoring the flagrant breach of rules. Mostly because you wouldn’t listen anyway.”

“Of course I’d listen,” Rover called after her as she left. “I’d just probably ignore you afterward!” He looked down at Gail. She was almost as tall as him, so he didn’t have to look very far. “Wanna be trained to be a rootin’ tootin’ fighting warrior?”

“Um …” Gail sounded strangled, and her shoulders hunched, and her voice went very soft. “N- not really?”

“Oh, well, okay.” Rover shrugged without letting her go. “Wanna be a cheerleader?”

“Um. Okay?”

“Excellent!” Abruptly Rover released Gail and whirled around, pointing dramatically at Tanith. “Tanith, break out the pompoms and miniskirts!”

“Only if you’re wearing one,” Tanith shot back, and Rover’s grin broadened.

“Was that a challenge?”

Valkyrie ignored their bickering and went to Gail, who stood watching Rover with eyes that were still very wide. “How d’you feel?”

“I was just hugged by Rover Larrikin,” Gail said quietly in a voice filled with utmost awe, and Valkyrie laughed. “Is he—is he always like that?”

Valkyrie looked at Rover, who was trying to force a doughnut into Tanith’s mouth, and Tanith, who was resisting. Valkyrie’s smile faded. “Actually, this is a bit extreme even for him. I mean, he’s not _not_ like this, it’s just …”

She shrugged uncomfortably.

“Is it because of their break-up?” Gail asked, and Valkyrie frowned.

“How do you know about that?”

“Everyone knows about that,” Gail said with a little shrug. “They’re the Dead Men. Everybody knows the Dead Men.”

“Well, just don’t spread it around,” Valkyrie muttered. “But yeah, Rover’s been taking it hard. When things are hard, he overcompensates.” It wasn’t obvious if you didn’t know him, but Valkyrie knew him more than well enough to recognise the strain in his grin and the edge of frantic jolliness in his eyes. He was being cheerful, but he was faking it—as if faking it long enough would make it true. Of them all, he was the one who missed the Dead Men the most.

“I’m going to get changed,” she said to Gail, and grinned. “Eat your doughnut. He’ll be offended if you don’t eat your doughnut.”

Gail squeaked and lifted the doughnut as if it was a sacred object, and bit into it as if she still couldn’t quite believe it was hers. Valkyrie left her behind and went to get her training clothes from her bag, and then to the locker-room to change. By the time she came out, Rover had icing in his hair and Tanith had icing around her mouth, and Gail was watching them both with something very close to rapture on her face, holding nothing but crumbs.

“ _There_ you are,” said Rover, and threw his arms around her. “C’mere.”

Valkyrie hugged him back, trying to ignore the fact it was a little too tight, tighter than it had been a year ago, and then pulled away. “How’s Dex?”

“Eh, he’ll live.” Rover shrugged. “But I was giving him a lecture and I lost track of time, and then I had to go get provisions to make up for not picking you up. So how’s your day been?”

“I beat up three bullies at school,” said Valkyrie.

Rover beamed and ruffled my hair. “That’s my girl. Tell me about it while we warm up.”

“What about Gail?”

The three of them looked at Gail, and she started and took a step back, and her fading blush deepened again. “Um—I’m okay watching.”

“Why don’t you want to be trained?” Valkyrie asked. “It’s really useful. Then you can defend yourself against people like those idiots.”

“I don’t want to fight people,” Gail said softly.

“How about some yoga, then?” Tanith suggested. “It’s just exercise. There’s nothing violent about it at all. I can show you a few forms.”

Gail hesitated. “You—don’t mind?”

“Nah,” Tanith said with a shrug. “If I don’t, I’ll probably just wind up helping out your mum by sparring some of the Cleavers anyway. Come on, you can put your bag with ours.”

They went off and Valkyrie turned to Rover. He watched them for a moment longer before looking back, and for an unguarded moment Valkyrie saw the tired wistfulness on his face. Then he snapped up his customary grin and beckoned. “C’mon. Let’s warm up, and you can tell me all about how you kicked some arse.”

 

Rover’s training sessions lasted for just over an hour. They began with a warm-up jog around the gym, and then a quarter-hour of practising old forms followed by a quarter-hour practising old magical techniques. The quarter-hour after that was spent practising a new form, and the last was spent with a new magical technique. Then Rover usually let Valkyrie do a freestyle spar, finishing up with a warm-down jog before hitting the showers.

Gail came with, her face red and eyes sparkling. She was too tall for any of Valkyrie’s spare clothes, and Tanith didn’t have anything that wasn’t leather, so Gail borrowed a set of Rover’s old jeans and a Thin Lizzy T-shirt which sagged.

After training they trooped up to Dexter’s office so the girls could do their homework. There were still doughnuts left, and Rover’s icebox turned out to contain ice-creams, so they got to snack while they worked. Tanith stuck around to give them a hand, but Rover vanished right up until they finished their homework. When he came back, he had Dexter in a wheelchair and Saracen grumbling with an armful of books.

Gail ducked her head over her worksheet, blushing. Valkyrie looked up with a grin. “Hey, Dex. How’re your ribs?”

“They’re fine,” Dexter grumbled. “They’re perfectly fine and this reaction is not the least bit necessary.”

“What kind of a husband would I be if I didn’t push you around?” Rover protested cheerfully, kicking the chair out of the way and positioning Dexter behind his cluttered desk.

“Not much of one, since you’re actually my wife,” Dexter shot back.

“Husband?” Gail whispered.

Valkyrie shrugged. “They needed an excuse to have a party.”

Saracen dropped his books on their table with a loud thud, and Gail jumped. Saracen gave her a charming smile. “Sorry. Hard on your arms, too many books. And the dust. The dust is horrific. I’m about to have an attack. I’m about to go into epileptic shock. Just as long as you all know whose fault it is before I do.”

He shot a glare toward Dexter.

“Valkyrie was doing her homework,” Dexter said with a shrug.

“I thought this _was_ Valkyrie’s homework,” Saracen complained.

“Her non-magical-related homework.”

“Well, fine. Gimme that.” Saracen reached out and yanked Valkyrie’s worksheet away. “I’ll do your boring, non-magical homework, and you can do your exciting, magical homework.”

Valkyrie looked down at the dusty books and pulled her worksheet back. “Pass. Besides, the last time I let one of you do my homework _for_ me, I had a teacher call me up to ask why there were doodles of naked girls all over my worksheet.”

“I was just spicing it up for him a bit,” Rover protested.

Valkyrie glared. “It was a she. She sent me to _counselling_.”

“Then she deserved to be unnerved by my fine art,” Rover said promptly. “I don’t suppose you kept that sheet?”

“I gave it to Tanith,” Valkyrie said, grinning at the woman, who scowled. “She wanted a souvenir. I told her I could get it autographed, but she almost combusted with excitement, so I decided I’d better save her blood-pressure.”

“You know,” said Tanith, still glaring, “I’m beginning to think we’ve been bad influences on you. We haven’t taught you your proper place.”

Valkyrie looked around the room. At Saracen, who pulled up the chair Rover had kicked, sat down, opened a book and promptly sneezed. At Dexter, now wearing a button-up shirt which wasn’t quite buttoned-up, trying to stand. At Rover, currently fussing over Dexter by shoving a doughnut into his mouth and forcing him to sit back in his wheelchair. At Gail, who was pretending to work while staring with wide-eyed awe.

Valkyrie looked at Tanith. “Nope, I’m good here.”

Tanith finally grinned back. “Well, okay then.”

Homework took an hour. It would have taken longer, but Gail paid a lot more attention in class than Valkyrie did, and she wasn’t as prone to being distracted as Tanith or Rover was. She was able to focus on work, and keep Valkyrie focussed, which was frankly amazing with Rover leaning over their shoulders and coming up with alternate answers while slurping on an ice-cream cone. Especially the part where he was getting it in Valkyrie’s hair.

After homework was done Saracen shoved a stack of books toward Valkyrie and Gail and told them to ‘hop to it’. With a sigh Valkyrie took one of the books and opened it up, and shoved another at Gail.

“I can’t,” Gail whispered.

“Can’t?” Saracen echoed, paging through his book and leaning his head on his fist, and looking absolutely bored. “Can’t what? Can’t read? Can’t open a book?”

Gail rested her fingers on the cover and hesitated. “I can’t—isn’t it—privileged information?”

“It’s a library book,” Valkyrie grumbled, rubbing her nose so she didn’t sneeze, “from forty years ago.”

“But isn’t it research for a case?”

Saracen looked up. “Oy, Dexter!”

Dexter glanced over from where he was finishing some paperwork, looking extremely grumpy and eager to be distracted. Rover had left the office, temporarily, and Dexter was taking advantage of his absence to get some work done, but he wasn’t happy about it. “What?”

Saracen pointed at Gail. “Does Macha Junior have permission to aid and abet on a Sanctuary murder investigation?”

“Only if you’re the one to distract Crux if he finds out,” Dexter muttered, lowering his head to his paperwork and then changing his mind. He dropped his pen and leaned back in his chair to stretch with a sigh. “You’ve heard of the Teleporter murders,” he said, and it wasn’t a question. Wide-eyed, Gail nodded. “They’re killed in a peculiar fashion. Valkyrie’s trying to find out whether this is the only time it’s been used. Unfortunately, sorcerers being long-lived, that means the whole of the Council’s history is up for being scoured.”

“And there’s ninety years of it,” Saracen added. “Plus another, what, five hundred on top of that from the Sanctuary before?”

“More like three hundred,” Valkyrie corrected, and looked up to find out why there was resounding silence. “What?” she said defensively when she saw they were staring at her. “I know things.”

“What happened to the rest?” Tanith wondered.

“Descry said Mevolent destroyed most of the older stuff during the war, and anything people wrote _during_ the war isn’t as detailed as the stuff after.”

“And most sorcerers still regard technology with too much suspicion to have bothered trying to put any of it on an electronic system,” Dexter finished. “Though that’s going to change if Descry has his way; he put a few things on computer for Meritorious, and he wants a computer installed in his office. Maybe he’ll finally be able to update the Sanctuary’s systems. Either way, right now it means we have to look through a lot of books.”

“Has anyone looked through the war-era books yet?” Gail asked timidly. “What if it’s someone from the war?”

“If it was, we would know who,” Dexter explained. “Someone who can murder Teleporters would have drawn attention. We would have more information. No, this is someone from after the war, so at least we have a ninety-year limit on how far back to look.”

Gail opened the book as if she still wasn’t sure whether she was allowed. “Wh- what am I looking for?”

“Any record of anyone being killed by a single knife-thrust to the back,” Valkyrie said promptly. “Or any record of Teleporters being murdered, because no one remembers that ever happening.”

“Trope Kessel,” said a new voice from the doorway. Everyone looked up.

“Skulduggery!” Valkyrie squealed and jumped to her feet, and rushed over to throw her arms around him. He was just as thin and bony to hug as she remembered. He still smelled faintly of leather and oil, from the Bentley, and with that faint dryness of old bone. Even though she knew he had been Lord Vile, and that he’d tried to do something really stupid less than six months ago, she didn’t care. Right now, she was just glad to see him.

He tensed under her grip, but a moment later relaxed and hugged her back, more tentatively than he had used to do.

“There you are,” Dexter grumbled. “Walking in and stealing our thunder. I thought that was Rover’s job.”

“He wasn’t here,” said Skulduggery with a shrug, and Valkyrie pulled back, still grinning.

“Who’s Trope Kessel?” she asked.

“He’s a Teleporter who was murdered fifty years ago, near Upper Lake,” Skulduggery answered.

“How do you know _that_?” Saracen demanded, slamming his book shut. “Have you been holding out on us? Have you been forcing us to chap our fingers on dusty books all this time when you knew the answer?”

“Emmett Peregrine cornered me outside Solomon’s cell five minutes ago. He wanted to know who was behind the murders.”

“What did you tell him?” Dexter asked, and Skulduggery shrugged.

“I told him we don’t know specifically, but we have a few ideas. Then I asked him if he did, and he didn’t. He knows about Light. What _did_ happen there, by the way?”

“Murder Rose and Gruesome Krav,” said Dexter.

“He got shoved through a wall with a kitchen table,” Saracen added helpfully.

Skulduggery nodded. “I heard about that. I’m surprised Crux got away with nothing worse than a broken wrist.”

“Because Dexter’s the one who broke his wrist,” Valkyrie said. She wanted to sit down, but she was half afraid that if she left Skulduggery’s side he would disappear again.

“It was an accident,” Dexter complained.

“I’m sure it was,” Skulduggery said consolingly, “and we won’t suggest at all that you merely took advantage of an opportunity each of us would pay to have. In any case, I asked Peregrine what interest the Diablerie might have in Teleporters and while he didn’t know, he became a little more open to the idea of protective custody. And he told me about Trope Kessel and Fletcher Renn.”

“ _Who_ is Fletcher Renn?” Dexter demanded.

“He’s a Teleporter,” said Skulduggery. “Natural-born, new to the scene, and being very obvious with his magic. Cameron and Emmett spoke to him a few months ago about training him, but he laughed them off and left. They haven’t seen or heard from him since, so either he’s dead himself or the Diablerie’s next target.”

“So you’re going to Upper Lake,” said Dexter.

“Of course.”

“And you want _me_ to figure out how to protect Peregrine.”

“If you can. I gave him your name too,” Skulduggery said to Tanith, “in case he decides not to take advantage of Dexter’s stunning abilities. Which, given what happened to Light, he may not.”

“I shouldn’t have assumed Crux would be able to recognise a murder happening in front of him,” Dexter muttered. “Skulduggery, we’ve got other problems. Light wasn’t killed by Murder Rose or Gruesome Krav.”

Skulduggery’s head tilted. “I was under the impression that they attacked the house.”

“They did, but only after someone got into the house. Light said he was a mortal, a representative of the local mortal council, but it was while the Diablerie were distracting me that Light was murdered. With a knife.”

There was a moment of silence. Then Gail tried to whisper to Tanith without moving her wide-eyed gaze from Skulduggery, “What does that mean?”

The tension broke. Skulduggery’s head moved toward her, and Gail squeaked and sank back into her chair. “Who is this?”

“Friend from school,” said Valkyrie. “She’s Macha’s daughter. Dex, are you saying the Diablerie is using mortal assassins? I thought the point of them was that they hated mortals?”

“They do,” said Skulduggery, still looking in Gail’s direction.

“Which means that either our visitor was a sorcerer pretending to be a mortal, which is surprising given the research they’d have to put into mortal council systems, or a mortal himself,” Dexter added.

“Is that possible?” Tanith wondered. She had spent the last hour polishing her sword and its scabbard until they gleamed. “Everything I’ve heard about the Diablerie says they’d never degrade themselves by pretending to be mortal or hiring them.”

“It’s possible,” Skulduggery answered, “if this mortal is the one using Batu’s name.”

There was another pause while everyone let that sink in. Then Saracen asked, “What would a mortal want with the Diablerie?”

“That’s why they call me a detective,” said Skulduggery, adjusting his hat and glancing behind him. “I’d best be off. I’m surprised Rover hasn’t come back yet.”

“You need to stop avoiding him,” Dexter said flatly.

“He doesn’t want to see me.”

“He thinks you don’t want to see him.”

“When did you become the therapist?”

“When you lot turned into idiots,” Dexter grumbled. “How’s Wreath?”

“No change. Descry is considering having Annunziata take him back to wherever you both went in India.”

“It’s probably the best thing to do,” Dexter said grimly, and waved his hand. “I’ll talk to Peregrine. You go mope, or whatever. Call me if you need a shoulder to cry on, dead man.”

“I’ll call you if I need someone to have shoved through walls instead of me,” said Skulduggery, and turned to leave.

“Wait,” Valkyrie blurted. “You’re going? Just like that?”

Skulduggery paused. “I’ll be back. I work here.”

Valkyrie scowled. “I’ve barely seen you in the last six months.”

“But you’ve seen me.”

“I’m not only Dexter’s apprentice, you know.”

He patted her head. “And you’ve been a marvellous help to me.”

“Stop it.” She slapped his hand away and stepped closer, and lowered her voice. “I don’t care what you did, okay? You’re my friend and I miss you, and I want to keep learning from you _and_ Dexter _and_ Rover _and_ Saracen _and_ Tanith _and_ —”

“Did one of you put her up to this?” Skulduggery asked Dexter and Saracen over her shoulder.

“Who, us?” Saracen demanded, stacking books.

Dexter lifted an eyebrow. “You think _we_ need to put _Valkyrie Cain_ up to anything?”

“You think we had to _collaborate_ with her to get her to agree that you’re an ass?”

“You think we had to—”

Tanith and Gail were giggling. Skulduggery raised his hands. “Alright, I get the point. I’m an ass, and apparently people still want me around. I’ll make sure to make myself visible more frequently from now on.”

Valkyrie crossed her arms. “Good. Otherwise I’d have to find your house, or grave, or whatever, and dig you out myself.”

Skulduggery chuckled. “I’ll bear that in mind. In the meantime, I have a fifty-year-old crime-scene to investigate.”

So saying, he squeezed Valkyrie’s shoulder, tilted his hat to a jaunty angle on his skull and turned and strode back into the Sanctuary at large.


	5. The civilised man

Dexter moved through the corridors of the Sanctuary, not quite as quickly as he would have liked. His ribs, mostly healed, still twinged when he moved the wrong way. Doctor Synecdoche had told him to stay off his feet for the rest of the day, or if that wasn’t possible, to take it easy. He wasn’t entirely sure what he was about to do constituted ‘taking it easy’, but Skulduggery was right. Teleporting was, officially, an endangered branch of magic. And that was putting it practically.

The Teleporters weren’t well-liked. They could get to places too easily, unwanted. The only Teleporter Dexter could say he actively liked had been Light, and the only ones he respected were Light and Tome. Peregrine, occasionally, was helpful during the war, but that was the only distinction he had as far as Dexter was concerned.

Peregrine couldn’t run forever. That was the only thing most Teleporters were good for: running. It came in handy on occasion, but not as a lifestyle. It meant that Dexter had to figure out how to protect him. Tanith was good, but she wouldn’t be able to take on Krav and Rose together.

There was one place that had leapt to mind. Or, well, one person who leapt to mind who could help. The problems were, one, contacting him, and two, whether he _would_ help.

Step one: contacting him.

Descry’s door was open. He looked up from his Elder Journal as Dexter came to it, and his eyes crinkled with a smile, and he beckoned Dexter in. Dexter did so, flopping easily on the couch nearest to the desk and looking around. “Where’s Melissa?”

_‘Desmond came to surprise her for an early dinner.’_

“What did he finally decide?” Desmond, over the last two weeks, had been asking each of the Dead Men available for their opinions as to the best present for his wife for their anniversary. Given the circumstances, he’d been unsure about the wisdom of celebrating anything at all.

_‘Paris. Melissa’s going to need some encouragement to go.’_

“Which, of course, you’ll do. It’ll be good for them to get away.” Only six months ago, half their family had been slaughtered. It was times like that a holiday was most needed, even though it never felt like the right thing to do. Descry knew that. He’d handle Melissa. Which left Dexter without any more small-talk to delay conversation. “I need you to give me Erskine’s number.” Skulduggery had already texted him Peregrine’s.

Descry raised an eyebrow.

“A number by which he can be _reached_.”

Descry’s other eyebrow lifted. Together they gave him an air of innocent surprise.

“Don’t give me that. You know how to get hold of him. You just haven’t been.” Dexter leaned forward, grimacing and pressing a hand to a twinge in his ribs. They didn’t _hurt_ , exactly, but they felt itchy under the skin while they were finishing their healing. “Descry, Erskine has a secret place to hide people. He took Fergus, Beryl and Carol there, and from the few letters we’ve been able to pass on to Melissa, they’re doing well. Wherever it is, it’s _safe_. Safe enough for a Teleporter.”

Wherever it was, Descry knew about it. That wasn’t in question. But Dexter wasn’t asking for the location—just the means to get in contact. He’d tried Erskine’s mobile a few times. It rang out. He must have decided to extend his cold-shoulder toward Descry to Dexter and probably Saracen too. If Erskine had any other number which he’d pick up, Descry would know.

Descry hesitated, and then pulled a strip of loose paper close and wrote a number down, and then pushed it toward him. Dexter took it. “Thank you. I didn’t get it from you.”

_‘There’s no one else from whom you could have gotten it,’_ signed Descry, looking amused.

“Details.” Dexter waved him off and got to his feet. _Thank you, Descry_.

Descry gave him another smile, the tiny encouraging one that made him look impish, and with a grin back Dexter left the office. It wasn’t, he told himself, that they didn’t care Erskine and Ghastly weren’t picking up, or that Rover was still torn between pummelling Skulduggery and hugging him, or that Anton was waiting patiently for Ghastly’s judgement as to how _he_ should react to the rest of them.

It was just that, after six months, the hurt was beginning to scar over. At least enough so that they didn’t feel like they were wearing open, bleeding wounds every second of the day. Dexter could relate to Desmond’s uncertainty.

Dexter apologised to Descry for dwelling on the thought and headed for the Repository. He had made a habit of going there more often. He was starting to feel like if no one went there in a while then something horrible was going to happen. First Meritorious. Then Morwenna. Both in the Repository. Besides which, it never hurt to check on the Grotesquery’s remains. Guild had insisted they be put in the Repository with the other magical items. The Administrator had sigil-working experience, so the Dead Men had conspired to give her false blueprints and repaired the wards themselves, later.

As he entered Dexter scanned the room for the Book of Names. There was still no sign of it. No one had asked where it had gone, and Descry hadn’t said anything, which meant that he had something to do with its disappearance. Dexter had to wonder just what he’d done with the thing. Then he rang the number Descry had given him and then stuffed it in his pocket, and forced himself to breathe evenly through the wild pound of his heart.

The phone picked up. “Hello?”

Dexter spoke without thinking, without stopping to consider or giving Erskine space to shout. “Erskine, it’s Dex. I need your help on a matter of national security. Well, really it’s a matter of one man’s security. Look, the Diablerie are murdering Teleporters. We’ve got two left and we don’t know where the second one is, but I’ve got Emmett Peregrine’s number in my phone and he needs somewhere to stay they won’t find him. You hid the Edgleys. Can you hide a Teleporter?”

He stopped then, to let his request sink in, to let Erskine consider that Dexter wasn’t asking on behalf of any of the Dead Men, but on behalf of someone presumably innocent who needed the help. Besides, they were all invested in the Diablerie’s existence. Or lack thereof.

An eternity later, Erskine answered. His tone was non-committal, but at least he hadn’t hung up. “Maybe. Probably. I mean, my … hiding-place … would be able to hide a Teleporter.”

“Well, he’s running on empty right now. If you’d be willing to take him even for a few days … just give me a call back. Or a text. Tell us where to be and we’ll be there.”

“I’ll think about it,” Erskine said flatly, and then hung up.

Dexter lowered the phone and exhaled. Well, that went better than he’d expected. Now to see about finding more evidence of Renn’s existence.

 

“Your ‘hiding-place’?” Creyfon asked with a sidelong look as Erskine lowered his phone and then dropped it to the counter. His head followed a moment later, but into his hands. “Is that what we are now, your ‘hiding-place’? I notice you’ve been ‘hiding’ here for six months now, so maybe it’s not wrong.”

“Shut up, Signate,” Erskine said into his hands.

“If you wanted blind devotees, Ravel,” said Signate, “then you should have gone about two blocks over. I’m sure someone in there would love to have you, even if they think you’re a fake.”

“I don’t want blind devotees,” Erskine grumbled.

“Then stop whining.” Signate took a healthy mouthful of Erskine’s whiskey.

Erskine lifted his face and reached for his own glass. “I’m not whining.”

“You’ve been _hiding_ here for the last six months, Ravel. You’ve barely left your house, never mind the city. If you’re not whining, then you’re sulking.”

“You know what I love about you, Creyfon? Your tact and sympathy.”

Creyfon shrugged. “If you wanted sympathy, you’d go to some woman or another, or that therapist of yours. You haven’t, so you don’t want sympathy.”

“Maybe some commiseration would be nice.”

“Commiserations?” Creyfon scoffed. “Your life was a great sack of festering goat’s balls. So was mine. Carry on. Deal with it. Do something with it. You’re the one who told me that.”

“I’m a lot more articulate than I remember being,” Erskine muttered, looking at his glass and seriously debating the wisdom of opening the whole bottle. The problem with that was that he’d done that a few too many times already over the course of the last six months, and he was starting to develop near-constant red eyes. The thing that made him realise he had to stop was when Creyfon had shown up this morning, taken one look and then roared with laughter at his beard. Beards, Erskine had discovered a long time ago, did not look good on him. As a matter of principle he didn’t usually let his get as far as to become ‘beards’.

So he’d showered, and shaved, and Creyfon had ordered in lunch, and they were right now having a controlled drink and a chat. Or not-chat, as the case may be. There weren’t many people outside the Dead Men with whom Erskine felt comfortable saying nothing. Sometimes he felt guilty that he even _had_ anyone outside the Dead Men with whom he felt comfortable saying nothing, but Descry had told him time and again from where that guilt sprang and he was trying his best not to pay it any attention.

Thinking of Descry, and by extension the Dead Men, made something hard coil in Erskine’s chest, and he downed the rest of his glass and gazed longingly at the bottle before getting up to put his glass in the sink, just for something to do.

“Dexter wants me to hide a Teleporter here,” he said suddenly.

“Gathered that from your half of the conversation,” said Creyfon.

“The Diablerie are murdering them.” Creyfon choked on his whiskey. Erskine let himself feel just a touch of smug satisfaction, then filled a different glass with water and downed it. “There’s only two left now. Emmett Peregrine and the boy.”

“The boy,” said Creyfon, and shook his head. “They already know about him?”

“Peregrine must have. Dex doesn’t know where he is, though.”

“So what are you going to do, then?”

Creyfon Signate wasn’t a man given to philosophising. He always said he’d tried it, once, and it had turned out ugly. Nowadays he preferred simple conclusions. Nowadays he wanted to live in virtual retirement, with only the occasional if specific task to do. And he was still awful at giving advice. It made Erskine wish Descry was there, then remember why he wasn’t, and then the wish shrivelled into a cold, painful confusion Erskine didn’t know how to handle.

He took a deep breath, and poured himself another glass of water. _On your feet and don’t stop moving, Ravel._

He didn’t know if he was up to talking to Dexter long-term. But the Diablerie was everyone’s problem, and even though Peregrine wasn’t really anybody’s friend, he didn’t deserve to be murdered for a cause. A long time ago Erskine had sworn to fight against the Diablerie.

He looked out his window across the street. It was a nice street. Nice enough that there were people walking down it, even at this time of night and with the brisk wind coming down the canal off the ocean. This street wouldn’t exist if he hadn’t taken a gamble nearly one hundred years ago. It wouldn’t exist if he hadn’t sworn to a group of chosen allies that he would give them the protection they needed. A true sanctuary. A place where they could be themselves, without fear of repercussion.

A place to hide in plain sight.

Erskine sighed and rubbed his head. “I’m going to call him back and let him hide Peregrine here.”

“Didn’t think you wanted the Dead Men to know about this place, except that mind-reading friend of yours.” Creyfon’s voice was non-committal. Erskine shot him a wry look.

“If I didn’t know any better I’d think you didn’t like Descry, Signate.”

Creyfon grunted. “I used to serve the Faceless Ones. Who am I to judge? Better he was on your side than ours. At least I can trust him to be stupidly moral about what he knows.”

“Isn’t it funny how heroes being heroes always works out for the benefit of the idiots?” The words came out before Erskine could consider them. Then he realised what he’d said and the shrivelled coldness twisted, and he reached wordlessly for the whiskey, dropped his hand, and filled his glass with water instead.

“Which of us is the idiot here?” Creyfon demanded, and Erskine didn’t answer. There was a pause, slightly tenser than before. Creyfon broke it sooner than Erskine expected. “Does Vex know what happened to the Grotesquery?”

The sudden change in topic made Erskine stir and turn, and lean back against the sink. “I imagine so. He’s been taking on more responsibilities around the Sanctuary since—since last year. Why?”

Creyfon didn’t answer right away. He stared down into his whiskey instead, and when he finally spoke, it was sudden. “How much did Scorn tell that friend of yours about what I did?”

“I don’t know,” Erskine said. “All _I_ know is what I told you: that you were involved in an attempt to summon the Faceless Ones, and that you actually managed to reach their dimension.” He said it with detach, because he couldn’t say it any other way. He’d known, back then, that Vile had supposedly died on that mission. Up until recently, the details had never mattered enough for him to tell anyone else.

_Descry had known the truth all along._

The shrivelled cold rock turned into a punch in his gut, and he had to take a deep breath and go to find a scented candle. He set it on the table and lit it, and then doused it, and then lit it, and then doused it, and then over again. It was the only way he could avoid where those thoughts led without starting on the whiskey again.

“Right,” Creyfon said flatly. “Well, we succeeded. That’s how Vile died: fighting the Faceless One. That’s where the Grotesquery came from.”

“So I gathered.”

_Vile’s not dead. Well, Vile_ is _dead, but he’s alive again, and he killed a bloody_ Faceless One _and survived._

Snap. Fizzle. Snap. Fizzle. Snap. Fizzle. The air filled with the scent of lavender and salt-water and charred wick.

“Faceless Ones don’t have bodies, Ravel. But the part of it that Vengeous used to stitch into the Grotesquery was flesh-and-blood. Like the rest of it he gathered together.”

“I saw it.”

Snap. Fizzle.

Creyfon took a breath. “When the Faceless One came through, it was just a—a jumble of physical impossibilities. One of the grunts we had with us looked at it and his mind shattered.”

“Sounds lovely.”

Snap. Fizzle.

“It possessed my twin brother.”

Snap. The whole candle went up in a spurt of flame, and Erskine dispassionately watched it melt into his table before he doused the fire with a wave of his hand and looked up. “The only part of the Grotesquery Bliss couldn’t destroy was the part that came from the Faceless One.”

“From my brother,” Creyfon repeated flatly.

“Creyfon—”

“If you say you’re sorry I’m going to break this glass over your pretty head.”

In spite of everything, Erskine managed to smile. “Wouldn’t want that. Be a waste of a glass. Not to mention the whiskey.”

Creyfon threw back the rest of the whiskey. “Now it wouldn’t be.”

“Still be a waste of a glass, though.” Erskine shook his head. “Why are you telling me this, Creyfon? What do you want? To know what’s happened to your brother’s remains? Or do you want them _back_?”

“Can you think of anywhere safer for the remains of a Faceless One than here?”

Erskine opened his mouth to point out that moving the remains of the Grotesquery somewhere no one in the Sanctuary knew about would be impossible without a whole lot more people knowing about it, and then closed it again. Because it _wouldn’t_ be. Because Descry was an Elder, and he _did_ know, and from what little contact Erskine had bothered to make, Descry was the favourite for being Grand Mage. And the Grand Mage would certainly be able to move the Grotesquery somewhere secret.

“I’ll see what I can do,” he said finally, and then shook his head as he reached for his phone. “If nothing else, you deserve to have your brother’s remains back, after all this time.”

“Some people would say we earned what we got.”

“I’m not some people,” Erskine said flatly, and texted Dexter with very specific instructions.


	6. The dark little secret

“Why did Ravel tell us to come _here_?” Peregrine demanded quietly. He was on edge. He looked exhausted, with the rings around his eyes and the beard, but he also looked spectacularly paranoid, with the way his gaze kept darting around.

Mind you, the last time Dexter was in Roarhaven he and Skulduggery had been accosted. Ghost-town or not, it was a dangerous place. The people still remaining were the worst of those who’d lived there to begin with. That was probably why Erskine had told them to stick to a very specific part of the outskirts, near the stagnant lake and jumbles of boulders.

Dexter didn’t like it. There was cover, but he couldn’t get a good view of the town, and he couldn’t conjure a boat—and didn’t know what was in the lake even if he did.

“I don’t know,” he admitted, keeping his back against the stone and trying to keep an eye on the rocks over his head as well as all around them. Why would Erskine tell them to go to a town belonging to a man who had once emphatically demanded his death as payment for information? They had to be related, but _how_ , Dexter had no idea.

Peregrine was pacing restlessly. Dexter tried to keep an eye on him, too. The Teleporter was liable to get antsy and rush off at any moment. Abruptly Peregrine swore and jerked up his foot, and yanked off his boot.

“Bloody rocks,” he muttered, shaking it out and then peering into it and yanking it back on.

“Rocks are just rocks, don’t blame them,” Erskine said, and Dexter whirled, and Peregrine blinked out of sight before appearing a second later where he’d been, scowling.

Erskine looked better than Dexter had feared. His eyes were red and a little sunken, and his hair a little more ruffled than usual, but he was clean-shaven and—typically—his complexion hid any rings around his eyes or other evidence of bad living. Stupidly handsome man. There was someone with him, but between the shadows and the rocks, Dexter couldn’t see details except that they were short and slim.

“And here I was starting to think your text had been a hallucination,” said Dexter.

“Vex.” Erskine nodded at him shortly. As if they barely knew each other. Dexter’s relief popped quite abruptly into weary resignation, and left him feeling like a wrung-out old dish-rag.

“Who’s your friend?” he asked. The figure grunted. “When did Anton shrink?”

He caught a flash of a smile on Erskine’s mouth, and then it vanished just as quickly. “Name’s Creyfon Signate. He helped me create the place we’re going.”

“Where _are_ we going?” Peregrine demanded. He looked pale.

“Yes,” said another voice, a familiar and very calm, very cold voice. “Tell us.”

Erskine and Signate whirled around to face the Torment. Dexter’s head snapped up. There were others on the rocks—the sort of riffraff he and Skulduggery had fought in Scapegrace’s tavern last year. Hieronymus Deadfall. Lightning Dave. Hokum Pete. A handful of others Dexter didn’t recognise. All of them looked a little too pleased to see them for Dexter’s comfort. He stepped back, defensively, toward Peregrine, and then a shadow fell across them and he looked up to see Brobding the giant wading through the shallow end of the lake behind them.

“I think this is our cue to leave,” he said, turning around, and was just in time to see Peregrine sway and then collapse. Dexter cursed and leapt forward, but Signate got there first and caught Peregrine before he hit the ground. The Teleporter’s face was grey and his breathing was laboured.

“You need to watch your step in Roarhaven,” said the Torment in a low, amused voice, and it was only then that Dexter remembered the size of the spiders the sorcerer had been able to summon. He glanced up and saw the withered old man’s eyes glitter. “Kill them.”

“Torment—” Erskine began.

“I am going to devour you piece by piece, Ravel,” said the Torment. “And I will _enjoy_ it.”

“I’m with Vex,” said Signate, and heaved Peregrine higher up on his shoulder. “Our cue to leave.”

“Not without dancin’ first,” said Lightning Dave, and he charged his body with electricity and leapt down from the rock straight at Dexter. Dexter charged a beam and shot it at Lightning Dave, but Lightning Dave thrust out his hand and a bolt collided with the energy, and they burst in midair. Lightning Dave yelped and landed with a thud, dazzled, but Dexter blinked away the burn in his eyes and charged another beam.

Something intangible yanked him back and he fell hard against a pair of bodies, and then heard a roar of flames. He looked up and saw Brobding bringing a club down on them, and his arm shot up. A tingle ran through him and his magic fizzled in his palm, and the club passed through him and the bodies behind him, and struck the ground with a blow that should have rocked it. He saw one of the boulders shaking with the force, but he didn’t feel it at all. The ground was steady under his feet, even when Brobding heaved the club up afterward.

“Get off me,” Signate grumbled, and Dexter scrambled up and whirled around. He raised his hands against the monstrous spider the Torment had become, and then Erskine gripped his wrist and lowered it.

“It’s alright,” he said. “We’re safe, for now.”

Dexter watched, wide-eyed, as the thugs from the tavern cursed and scoured the ground where Dexter stood. Deadfall walked right _through_ him. “What was that?”

“Creyfon’s a Shunter,” said Erskine, taking Peregrine’s weight off his slighter friend and pulling a leather roll out of his pocket. When he opened it, Dexter heard the clink of glass vials.

Dexter lifted his hand and stuck it through Deadfall’s back. He felt nothing. It was as if he was putting it into air. “No Shunter I’ve ever heard of can do this.”

“Took practice,” said Signate. “One of the simplest things to do, so simple no one’s figured it out. Except me. We’re just one plane to the side. They can’t see us, hear us, or touch us. Call it a layer. I’m good at those.”

“But it’s not going to last long,” said Erskine, finding a vial and forcing the contents into Peregrine’s mouth, and then making him swallow. “We need to get out of here.”

“How?”

“The same place we planned to go in the first place.” Peregrine shuddered and inhaled more deeply than before, but his breathing was still uneven and his eyes were glassy. Erskine stowed his vials and looked up, and opened his mouth.

“I know, I know.” Dex held up a hand, palm away from Erskine. “I’m slated to be the ox again.”

“Stop working out.”

“We can’t all be pretty-boys.” Dex stooped and heaved Peregrine into a fireman’s carry with a grunt, and then another one when his ribs complained. “Synecdoche is going to kill me.”

Erskine frowned. “Why?”

“Because Gruesome Krav shoved me through a wall with a kitchen table earlier today,” Dexter grumbled, “and I may have broken a few ribs, and she may have told me to take it easy for the next twenty-four hours.”

“ _Why_ were you letting Krav shove you through walls with a kitchen table?” Erskine demanded.

“Martial squabbles later,” said Signate. “Escaping now. We’re going to join the rest of the dimension soon.”

Dexter realised the throb in his body, which had begun as a tingle, wasn’t being caused by his heartbeat or adrenaline. It was Signate’s magic wearing off. He shifted Peregrine’s weight, let it settle, and then nodded. “Lead the way.”

Signate did, at an appropriately fast clip. Erskine took the rear. Dexter walked between them, keeping Peregrine steady across his shoulders with one hand on the Teleporter’s thigh and his other hand ready in case he needed to use magic. They walked right through the Torment’s bulk and out of the angry confusion of the mob, and back toward the town. They hadn’t gone far when they veered off back around toward the lake, down a scrubby path and around a large boulder into a crack of darkness caused by a split in the rock. Before Dexter could realise what they were doing and stop they were already in the split, and then they were in a tunnel, and then the throb in his body beat one last time with a flush of magic that was somewhere between excruciating and pleasurable, and faded.

“Don’t ever Shunt me again without warning me first,” he said to Signate.

“Doesn’t feel that bad.”

“I don’t know whether I felt a touch of Serpine’s Red Hand or just had a lukewarm climax. I’m not partial to either possibility, to be honest. No offence; you’re just not my type.”

Erskine snorted and conjured a ball of fire to light the way, and Signate actually turned to give Dexter an incredulous look over his shoulder. Dexter just grinned at him.

“You’re both crazy.” Signate turned back around, shaking his head.

“Where are we?” Dexter asked.

“In another dimension,” said Signate shortly.

“I thought the over-excited tingle meant we’d gone back.”

“We did,” said Erskine, “but this is another one. Or the same one, or whatever. Don’t ask me details; I’m not a Shunter.”

“It was your idea,” said Signate.

“I left the execution up to you.” Signate snorted, and Erskine went on. “Either way, this tunnel doesn’t exist unless you have a Shunter who knows where it is or an item a Shunter’s imbued. The Torment has been searching for it for years.”

“He doesn’t like you very much.”

“I did notice that, thanks, Dex.”

“You’re welcome. Where are we going?” Dexter felt as if he’d asked that question a dozen times by now, and neither of his companions were answering it to his satisfaction. He just hoped they were taking great pleasure in the fact he had to repeat it, because if he had to one more time he was liable to start cracking heads. Or he would be, if he weren’t feeling so buoyantly relieved that Erskine was bantering with him.

“My hiding-place,” Erskine said simply.

“I’m ready to throw Peregrine at you.”

“Try not to do that. He’s dying fast enough as it is, without you making it worse.”

The tunnel curved away and down, toward the lake. Peregrine’s weight was starting to put a crick in Dexter’s neck. “I hope you have good healers where we’re going.”

“We do, but we have to get there first,” said Erskine, “and the anti-venom I gave him is a catch-all, but it isn’t strong enough as a cure. So don’t dawdle, Vex, or I might start to think you’re getting soft.”

“Blame Krav.” They had to be under the lake now; the boulder had been right next to it to begin with. But the tunnel didn’t seem damp, and if he wasn’t mistaken, it was _rising_. He glanced toward the ceiling, misshapen with shadows cast by Erskine’s ball of flames, and saw the irregular stone stop at an archway chiselled with sigils. The ceiling after that was all stonework. Man-made. And they were still rising. They should have been past the surface of the lake by now.

Dexter’s back prickled. ‘Another dimension’, Erskine had said. How literally had he meant it?

“Erskine—”

There was light at the end, but not a natural one. It looked like the glow of flames. And there were noises. The quiet susurration of waves, and voices—one female, one male.

“—not going to pinch you. I’ll _punch_ you, though.”

“Did _you_ imagine this would be happening when you woke up this afternoon?”

“Grow up, Blair. It’s our job to expect things like this to happen.”

“That was _Erskine Ravel._ That was the prince himself.”

“You have such a crush.”

“That was—I beg your pardon?”

“You may beg.”

“No, I won’t. And I don’t have a crush.”

“You do. You have a man-crush. A platonic man-crush.”

“I’m sorry, _which_ of us has the collection of—”

Signate very deliberately kicked a stray pebble through the tunnel, and the conversation cut off.

“Did you hear that?”

“I heard it.”

There was tension in their voices, and a scrape of metal, and the light flared brighter. Dexter found himself grinning. Not because of the tension, but because in spite of their banter they still snapped right to business at the slightest sign they might be needed. It reminded him of bad times, but good men.

“Hallo, the border,” Signate called gruffly. Dexter was fairly sure he heard a squeak. He was also fairly sure it came from the man, Blair.

“It’s them,” said the woman, sounding much more composed than her partner. “Hallo, the Irish. You’re clear to pass.”

They came out into a room lit by fire, dazzling enough that Dexter blinked in the light after the relative darkness of the tunnel.

“Alice? You forgot to dim your fire.”

“Oh, right.”

The fire weakened, and Dexter was able to look around. The room was circular, with canals along the side that he could smell were filled with oil. The stone behind them was sooty, so they’d only just been lit and put out. He looked up and saw a domed ceiling, inlaid with a mosaic of Ireland and complete with differently-coloured tiles for the major cities.

“It’s a funny thing about those tunnels,” said Signate, and Dexter turned to look at the broad archway leading back to Roarhaven. “Echoes carry.”

“… Oh.”

Dexter turned around again and saw Blair blush. He was dark-haired, and young—he looked in his mid-to-late twenties, so he was probably over a century, but not much more. His partner, Alice, looked equally embarrassed. She was a redhead, but orange instead of auburn, and with a healthy but adorable splatter of freckles across her face and down her neck. She was Blair’s age. Both of them were dressed in smart, tailored uniforms immediately recognisable as enforcement, with badges and boots and hard-wearing vests. Both had pistols and phones on their utility belts, along with a set of trinkets Dexter couldn’t immediately identify, but Blair had a rifle under his arm too, one he must have had ready before Signate announced them.

When Dexter glanced at Erskine, he grinned again to see his friend had that particular blankness around his eyes which substituted for embarrassment. “You’re going to have to keep a closer watch tonight,” he said briskly. “The residents of Roarhaven objected to having strangers in their midst. I don’t think they’re going to find the entrance, but be careful anyway.”

“Yes, sir.” Blair saluted. Dexter recognised the manner of that salute. It was the salute of the awed.

“Call ahead to the hospital,” Erskine continued. “We have a man here with a spider-bite. He needs attention.”

“Do you want an ambulance?” Alice asked, reaching for her phone and pressing a speed-dial, and asking for dispatch. Dexter shifted slightly. He could still feel Peregrine’s breathing, and hear it, but he could also feel the Teleporter shivering. Erskine glanced their way and frowned.

“No. He doesn’t have that time. We’ll meet them halfway.”

“Sea-ferry’s already stopped for the night,” Signate pointed out.

“The air-ferries are still running, though,” Blair offered. “There’s one due soon on the Deck.”

“That one’s ours,” said Erskine.

“I’ll go with you,” said Alice, shutting off her phone and turning back to them. “With all due respect intended, sir, my badge will clear the Deck sooner than—um—”

“His face?” Dexter suggested with a wicked grin.

Erskine scowled at him. “Vex, if the man you’re trying to protect—good job, by the way—weren’t about to expire on you, I’d spend more time beating you to a pulp. Since he is, and I said I’d help, I’m going to ignore that remark.”

“Vex?” Blair’s eyes widened. “ _Dexter_ Vex? Oh my God, I’m in Heaven.” Then he went red and rigid. “Tell me I didn’t just say that out loud.”

“I have that effect on people,” Dexter assured the blushing guard, moving across the stone floor to the door on the other side.

Alice was laughing. She clapped a hand to her partner’s shoulder. “Don’t worry, Blair. I’ll be sure to tell your wife you’re leaving her, in case you forget to leave a note.”

“I hate you,” Blair mumbled.

“Oh, please. The two of you met at the Legends of the War panel during the festival. The only thing she’d be mad about is that you left her for a couple of Dead Men and didn’t take her with.”

“Excellent,” said Dexter. “I’ll bring my husband. We can have a party. Erskine, how do I open this door?”

“After all this time married to Larrikin, you’d think you’d know how to use your hands,” Erskine muttered, but he slid in ahead and pressed his palm to a panel on the side, and the door opened with a hiss. On the other side was a sealed room, like an airlock or a quarantine chamber, but Alice moved ahead this time and overrode the controls to make the other side open.

“Is that allowed?” Dexter wondered.

“Our germs are the same as your germs,” said Alice, “and you don’t have time to spare waiting around for quarantine. It’s just a precaution for those times we do need it.”

“You make it sound like I’m going to another planet.”

She gave him a smile, but it was an odd smile like she wasn’t sure what he was talking about, or whether he completely understood what _she_ was talking about. Then she moved through the door and Dexter found himself in another convoy, moving even faster than they had before. The door led to a stone atrium that would have been spooky in the darkness if it weren’t for the glass-domed ceiling. When Dexter looked up, he saw the glow of lights and the thick ribbon of the galaxy spreading across the sky. In Ireland, it had been just coming up on twilight. Here, it was full night.

“Toto, we ain’t in Kansas anymore,” he muttered, and Alice laughed and tossed a fireball into the canal running the circumference of the room, and the flames rushed along it until the room was at least lit.

They didn’t stop to admire anything, though, and Dexter regretted that, because he still didn’t have a clue where he was. When they stepped outdoors he was struck instantly by the smell of the ocean, and the lap of the waves came louder. When he glanced around, the scope and distance of the lights around him indicated buildings, lots of them, and water. Then Alice stopped in front of a pedestal and Dexter stopped too, and the pedestal lit up. So did the circle of sigils around the four of them.

Dexter glanced down. “Um …”

Alice touched something and Dexter felt a sudden jolt, like static but more solid and in his feet. A sudden breeze ruffled his hair. He looked up and saw the edge of a platform in front of him, and a great expanse of dark sky, and when he glanced higher the stars looked a lot closer. A sort of slow panic stirred in his gut and made his limbs tingle, but it was the sort covered by a haze of numbness. There was another jolt, and the sky flickered, and then it was filled with distant chains of lights.

“This way,” said Erskine, and took his arm, so Dexter followed. The platform was broad, the width of a four-lane street and fully illuminated so that Dexter could see the colour of the tiles around the sigils was different to the rest. The sound of chatter and laughter drifted to him, and there were handfuls people strolling back and forth like it was an open-air market, or waiting to step into the circle of sigils. There weren’t so many as to constitute the platform being crowded, but there were a number. When Dexter glanced to the side, he saw a building stretching up and up, and a long string of shop-fronts and restaurants. The former were dark. The latter were still open and being patroned.

“This is the Éire Deck,” said Erskine, “Southside. Officer Owens—”

“On it.” Alice hurried ahead, raising her voice. “Hold the ferry! Medical emergency!”

The rest of them followed at as fast a pace as Dexter could manage. His shoulders were really starting to hurt. In front of him, he saw the edge of the platform and a crowd of people by the rails there, and Alice moving through them. Beyond _that_ , there was a ship with furling sails coming in to dock against the edge of the platform. He didn’t see the manoeuvre, but it came in alongside the edge, slowing, and then settled in place.

Alice was arguing with a well-dressed man by the rail. Or rather, he was trying to argue and she was shutting him down. “You can’t commandeer the ferry,” he said indignantly, “I need to be home! I need to be up very early tomorrow morning and it’s getting late!”

“I’m sorry, sir,” said Alice, a little impatiently because her phone was chiming, “but as I said, we have a medical emergency coming through and there isn’t time to wait for an ambulance to come to us.”

The well-dressed man crossed his arms. “And I suppose you have a medic on hand to vouch for the severity of this emergency?”

“She does,” said Erskine, striding forward with the expression and posture he always used when he was about to charm someone into agreeing with him and be firm while doing it. The moment the people waiting by the dock laid eyes on him, the whispers began.

“—isn’t that—”

“That’s Erskine _Ravel_ —”

“He’s here? In the city?”

“—the _prince_ —”

They were the same sort of things Blair had been saying, and Dexter had been able to run with them, but now they were adding to Dexter’s feeling of detached panic. He was starting to feel dizzy. The well-dressed man’s eyes widened. Alice turned away to answer her phone.

“I’m very sorry for the inconvenience,” said Erskine in a firm but reasonable tone. “But we’ve just come from Roarhaven and we need to get to the hospital as soon as possible.”

“Roarhaven?” The man paled. The whispers increased. “It’s not—what he’s got isn’t … contagious, is it?”

“Not in the least,” said Erskine calmly, “but it’s severe. I appreciate your understanding, sir.”

“Of course,” said the well-dressed man, glancing toward Peregrine and taking a step back.

Signate moved toward the docking ramp. The boat, Dexter could see now, was settled into a thick mesh harness attached to the Deck. There had only been one or two people waiting to get off, and now the crew-member by the plank beckoned him past Signate’s shoulder. It was a broad plank—ten feet across. Dexter still made sure not to look to either side as he walked over it. The moment he was at the boat’s rail, Signate and one of the crew-members took Peregrine off his shoulders and settled him onto a flat-backed hammock slung toward the stern. Dexter sat on one of the long padded seats nearby and took a deep breath.

“You’ll have a medical team waiting for you on the other Deck,” Alice said to Erskine, and saluted. “Good luck, sirs.”

“Thank you, Officer,” said Erskine, and stepped onto the boat. Dexter glanced around. There were four crew: one at the tiller, one in a seat on the stern, one just stationing herself at the front of the quarterdeck and the fourth who was detaching them from the plank and the harness. The man in the chair at the back had lit a lamp, and he put a pinch of dust inside which turned the flames ruby-red and cast the whole ship in eerie shadows. They fought with the light of the regular flames. Erskine came closer.

“First-aid kit?” he asked, and Signate put a mask into his hands. Erskine put it over Peregrine’s face and covered the sigils on the front with his hand, and Dexter knew he was helping to channel oxygen into it. Peregrine’s laboured breathing eased.

“Ferry up,” called the woman at the tiller. The man seated behind her raised his hands, and the whole boat shuddered and lifted off the harness. The woman on the quarterdeck used air to push them away from the platform. “Carry on.”

The deckhand, or whatever his official name was, ran out the mainsail. The woman on the quarterdeck raised her hands and the sails filled, and they shot away from the platform. Dexter tried to watch the deckhand scurry about, but he was still feeling dizzy even sitting down, and settled for watching more sails unfurl until they were moving so fast that the breeze started to be a problem. And they were accelerating. Erskine looked up and snapped his hand with a twist, and formed a windbreak in front of the ferry so the air moved to either side and left its passengers in a calm lee.

“Cheers,” said the woman at the tiller.

“You’re welcome, Captain.” Erskine sat down on the seat opposite Dexter, but Dexter got up and moved to the rail, and even though part of him was pointing out that he probably shouldn’t be staring, he couldn’t help it. They were sailing. Through the _air_. And there were other air-ferries flying along invisible lanes, none as fast as theirs, and all giving way. The red fire, he realised with a start, acted in the same fashion as an ambulance light.

He looked down and saw the seethe of black ocean, and glittering lights flanking streets not too far below to see the people walking on them. Distantly, he came aware that Erskine was talking.

“We just left Éire District,” he said, “which houses the entrance to Roarhaven and homesteads for peoples represented by the Irish Cradle. Below us is the Watercourse—it runs between the districts and connects to the main ocean. Ferries run across it during the day, but with the bridges, walkways and the reef it’s too dangerous to navigate at night.”

“How far up are we?” Dexter asked without thinking.

“Two hundred feet. The ferries don’t go any higher, but the postal gliders do.”

“Postal gliders?”

“Easiest way to get mail from district to district. Either way, right now that’s what we’re aiming for.”

Erskine pointed, and Dexter automatically followed the gesture. In front of them rose a tower, taller than the one in Éire District. Some of it was in darkness; the only reason he could tell its outline was because the height of it was lit. There were patches of light, mostly around the two-hundred-foot mark for which they were aiming, but otherwise it was a looming presence in front of them. And Erskine was still talking.

“The Central District is the biggest, but mostly because it holds all the public facilities. See that band of lights around the outside, next to the Watercourse? Public housing. Civil servants, refugees, orphans—anyone who works for the government or needs help to have a roof over their heads. That’s also where the school and the university are. The dark circle past that is the Fiddler’s Green, the park. It’s relatively new—until a couple of decades ago the salt air and terrain kept killing off the plant-life, but the researchers managed to terraform the area enough that they’re talking about ground-based farms. The Green surrounds the tower, and in the tower is the hospital and the city’s government offices, and the rest of the city’s civil services. The farms and research facilities, and hydraulics plant, are all underwater—”

A roar filled Dexter’s ears, and his vision burned white, and he sat down abruptly on one of the seats.

“Stop talking, please,” he said weakly, and Erskine’s voice cut off suddenly, and didn’t begin again. The rest of the ride passed without conversation, and even though Dexter’s dizziness faded, the numbness didn’t. He didn’t turn around, or do anything but watch the Central Deck approach at high speed. His ears were ringing. He wanted to ask where they were, or if he’d somehow been bitten and was hallucinating everything, but he couldn’t find the words.

The captain called for docking procedures, but Dexter just watched as the ship slowed and sails were furled, and the ferry was brought neatly into its harness. He rose to help move Peregrine out, but there were people on the Deck, and the moment they were attached to the gangplank a couple of medics came onto the boat and went to Peregrine themselves. Erskine was already answering questions, and Dexter let him, because he didn’t have the faintest idea what had bit Peregrine besides ‘spider’. Instead he watched Signate get off the ferry, and then followed in something of a daze, only vaguely aware of Erskine behind him.

“Ravel.”

There was a woman on the Deck, with long dark hair in a plait and exquisitely shaped features, and so stunningly beautiful that for a few seconds Dexter could only stare. Then his trained defence kicked in and he snapped straight, centring his mind forcefully only to realise that there was no magic involved. The woman was, quite simply, lovely. As lovely as China Sorrows, without the magic to draw attention to that fact.

“Madam Mist,” said Erskine with a bow, and now Dexter stared for other reasons. He knew the name, but the last time he’d seen Madam Mist had been centuries ago, and she’d worn a veil then. She smiled at Erskine, but faintly, in the same manner Descry did—with her eyes, and without any alteration to the curve of her perfect mouth.

“It’s good to see you again,” she said. “I’ve been waiting for you to visit since you came back.”

“He was sulking,” said Signate. Erskine scowled.

“I was not sulking,” he muttered.

“You had your head in a bottle and you hadn’t shaved for at least a week. You were sulking.”

“You came from Roarhaven?” Mist asked, effectively halting the brewing argument.

“We needed to pick up a refugee,” said Erskine.

“I see. And how is my brother?”

“He wants to kill me, he’s going to enjoy it, etcetera. I think he’s holding a grudge.”

“Hence his poisoning the Teleporter,” said Mist. “It’s fortunate he never discovered Creyfon’s magic.”

“I’m pretty talented like that,” Creyfon murmured.

Dexter watched them, and felt an odd sense of being left out. He had never felt left out before, when he was with another Dead Man. Movement caught his eye and he turned to see the medics with Peregrine on a stretcher, moving him off the ferry and across the Deck toward the tower. Automatically he went to follow.

“Dexter?”

He stopped and turned to Erskine. The other sorcerer looked almost like a stranger. A stranger as beautiful as the woman beside him, as regal, with inhuman golden eyes. Prince. Faery prince. “I’m going with,” Dexter said lamely, motioning toward the medics.

“I have assigned guards to his welfare,” said Mist.

“He’s my ward.”

“Dexter.” Erskine took his shoulders. “Mist has it handled, and you’re under doctor’s orders to take it easy. It’s getting late. Well, it’s only getting late _here_ , but you could probably use the sleep anyway. You can borrow my bed and come see Peregrine tomorrow.”

Dexter looked at him and opened his mouth to remind him that Mist was a Child of the Spider, that Peregrine was Dexter’s responsibility and he should _be there_ in case something happened. Erskine still looked like a stranger. Someone powerful, someone part of things Dexter hadn’t known about, someone Dexter couldn’t possibly know because this place was—was—

Then he remembered Erskine, his friend, admitting that he’d been rescued from Mevolent by the Children of the Spider. By the Child who had just earlier today tried to murder him. He remembered Erskine being so ashamed of those associations that he couldn’t bear to tell his best friends for decades afterward. If Dexter objected now, he would only prove him right. Dexter closed his mouth and nodded.

Some of the tension went out of Erskine’s shoulders, and some of the aloofness relaxed from his face, and Dexter caught the relief in his eyes.

“Come on, Dex,” Erskine said, almost gently, and turned him toward the stairs lead downward, tight up against the tower. “Let me show you my home.”


	7. Don't stop moving

The cloaked man moved through the halls of the Sanctuary swiftly and with his head down. It was late. There were very few people around anymore. Even still, he was careful. He didn’t want to speak to anyone. He didn’t want to be seen by anyone. Especially not … them.

At the junction ahead his female partner motioned for him to stop and he pressed himself up against the wall. A late-night worker strolled by her, she smiled, and waited until he was gone before waving the cloaked man on. She moved ahead, to where the Gaol began. The attendant was asleep. They were expecting that. That was why the cloaked man had chosen tonight, when this particular guard as on duty. His name was Weeper.

“Wreath is at the end,” said the woman. “I’ll keep watch here until you come out.”

“Thank you, Tanith,” said Ghastly. It sounded flat and empty. Everything he said sounded flat. He didn’t speak much these days. He didn’t have anyone to talk to.

“You’re welcome.” Tanith took a seat opposite Weeper, against the wall, as if she was picking up on his guard-duty. No one would question her. Ghastly moved between them and down the long aisle between the cells, and ignored the prisoners calling out to him. He kept walking until he got to the very end, where the last cell was, and then he stopped. Inside that cell was a tattooed man, slumped on the bed and against the wall. Unlike the other prisoners, he didn’t shout. He just sat there, as the rumours said he had for the last five months, staring into space with black eyes. They didn’t even bother to have someone on him at all hours anymore. The only one who was inclined to stay was the Italian Necromancer, and Ghastly had waited until she had left. He wanted no witnesses.

Ghastly watched Solomon and waited to feel something, and didn’t. “Wreath.”

There was no response. Ghastly tried again. “Wreath.”

The Necromancer was breathing. That was the only distinction Ghastly could see. The sigils written into his skin didn’t glow, but they were stark, almost as if they were the body and Wreath’s pale skin was just window-dressing around a sigil-created construct.

Ghastly leaned against the bars. He wasn’t even sure why he was here anymore. For the last six months he had been numb. Numbness had been better than the angry, cutting betrayal, but now he couldn’t feel anything at all. He wouldn’t have thought of this, but Tanith regularly came by the shop. Sometimes she didn’t talk, but sometimes she did. She never mentioned … the others. But she told him about Valkyrie, and what Guild was trying to do with the Sanctuary, and she had told him about Wreath.

Wreath had fought Vile, in the Temple. He had been the only one to survive. That was the part that stuck in Ghastly’s mind. Vile— _Skulduggery_ —had spared Wreath. After two centuries of bad blood, of broken friendship. Skulduggery had spared Wreath and not Ghastly’s mother.

The thought made something in his gut stir. He wasn’t sure if it was rage or betrayal, but either way it hurt. “Why?” he asked Wreath, and for the first time in months there was something in his voice. A thickness. “Why did he spare you and not—” His voice threatened to break. “Why _you_?”

There was no answer. Ghastly rested his forehead against the cool metal bars and breathed, and waited for the twisting emotions to settle. He was just about to turn around and leave, and let the numbness take him, when Wreath spoke.

“Aura.”

Ghastly stopped and turned, and felt something very close to surprise through the numbness. He went back to the bars. “Wreath? … Solomon?”

As far as he could tell, Wreath hadn’t moved at all. He waited, but there was no answer. Not until he’d shifted and turned to leave again a minute later. “Death-aura.”

Ghastly glanced back and hesitated. From everything Tanith had said, Wreath hadn’t spoken to anyone at all. Ghastly was fairly certain he wasn’t imagining the man talking, either. So he turned back around and gripped the bars, and leaned into them, and studied Wreath carefully. “What about the death-aura?”

He deliberately didn’t think about exactly what the death-aura was. What it _meant_.

Solomon breathed. Ghastly watched. Eventually, the Necromancer’s lips moved, his words coming out as if he’d had to drag them up from deep inside. Maybe he had. Had anyone talked to him and bothered to wait the minute or so needed for him to answer?

“Used it.”

The words filtered in slowly and Ghastly froze. His brain shorted, restarted, ticked over. “Who?” he asked numbly. “Who used it?”

“I did.”

The answer came slowly, but it made something inside Ghastly settle like stones in his gut, and it took the emotion with it. The numbness settled in. Solomon had fought Vile … Skulduggery. Ghastly had thought Skulduggery had spared him. He’d been wrong. Solomon had just used the death-aura to distract him when he was still getting used to his power, and it had worked. Skulduggery would have killed him too. He wasn’t special.

It didn’t make Ghastly feel any better. He felt like it should have. Like he should have been vindicated. Instead he turned to leave, automatically because it was easier than considering the decision rationally. He only got a few steps away.

“She knew.”

Ghastly stopped. His heart was pounding. It felt distant and painful at once. Part of him said he should leave now, before that sensation got worse, but he couldn’t move.

“She knew. Armour’s memories. Last thing she saw … she knew it was him. She knew.”

The roar overtook Ghastly’s ears and his head rang, and he _had_ to move. He found himself running down the aisle between the cells, his chest so tight it felt like it was bursting. He swept past Tanith and heard her startled “Ghastly?” and didn’t stop.

Somewhere in the Sanctuary’s halls, he figured out where he was going. But he needed his van, so he went there first. He was vaguely aware of Tanith scrambling into the passenger’s seat as he pulled away from the curb, and he was vaguely aware that she tried to talk to him. But he didn’t answer, he couldn’t answer, and eventually she stopped trying.

It was anger. Anger without betrayal, anger without the stabbing hurt. He could use anger. It burned away the numbness, so he didn’t want to lose it. He kept it hot by letting Solomon’s words ring over and over in his head.

_“She knew. She knew it was him.”_

The drive to Descry’s cottage was a blur. Ghastly pulled up with a grind of dirt and flung open the door. His hood caught in the seat so he wrenched it off and left it behind, and strode toward the cottage. He heard Tanith shut off the van’s engine behind him. The porch-light was on, but it was the only one that was. Ghastly pounded the door. It shuddered in its frame, but held. Of course it did. Anton had built it.

“Hopeless!” Ghastly shouted, and his voice cracked with anger. “Answer me or I’ll—”

“Ghastly,” said Tanith, and Ghastly whirled, but she wasn’t looking at him. She was looking back toward the trees. Ghastly looked past her and saw Saracen on the edge of the woods, holding a flashlight.

“He’s over here,” said Saracen. “In the meadow.”

Ghastly moved toward him, and past him, and when he tripped over a root he conjured fire to light the way.

“Should we follow?” he heard Tanith ask uncertainly.

“Definitely,” Saracen said.

Ghastly broke into a run. The trees were just looming shadows in the darkness. Soon he heard the hum of bees, and followed the sound, and before long the woods receded and he came out into the meadow where the bees swarmed. The hives were tall figures made stark in his fire-light. He strode through them, searching for Hopeless.

By the tree in the middle of the meadow someone rose from a sitting position and turned without surprise. No surprise at all. Because Hopeless had known he was coming from a mile down the road. Hopeless always knew.

The anger flared and before Ghastly could stop to think, or even want to, he slammed Hopeless up against the tree.

“Is it true?” he demanded—shouted. “ _Did she know_?! Is it true?”

Hopeless rested his hand on Ghastly’s wrist, but Ghastly shook it off and pushed him harder up against the tree. Hopeless grunted and looked up at him. His cheeks were wet, but his eyes were calm. Dilated. Borrowing someone else. He nodded and Ghastly felt something inside him break, and he punched the trunk next to Hopeless’s face. The bark chipped, and Hopeless flinched.

“How could you—” Ghastly’s voice cracked. He ran right over it. “How _dare_ you—you knew she knew—how _dare_ you not say anything? _She was my mother and he killed her!_ He—” His words caught in his throat and he shuddered. All his hot rage came rising up as despair instead, and he choked on it. “My brother—murdered my mother—and she knew it was him—how could you—”

He wanted the anger back. He fought for it, for that searingly justified heat. “You _knew_ he was Vile and you didn’t— _why_? How could you—h- how—?”

Hopeless put a hand on his chest, not to push him away but to sign. _‘He came back.’_

“He murdered my _mother_! How could he—pretend that—” Ghastly couldn’t get enough breath to speak. His chest was too tight. But Hopeless knew what he was saying anyway.

_‘He gave up his clan crest.’_

The rage came hot and sudden, and Ghastly seized it and shook Hopeless hard. “ _It’s not enough!_ Nothing could _possibly_ be enough! He didn’t just kill her, he made sure she knew it was him doing it!”

Hopeless made a sound, something Ghastly dimly realised was pain, but his vision was red and hazy, and he couldn’t have backed away even if he wanted to. Then Hopeless gripped his wrist and reached up to wipe his face, and Ghastly’s vision cleared somewhat, enough for him to see Hopeless’s signs.

_‘She had a vision. It’s why she faltered. She saw it was him and that he would come back, and that you were alive. That’s all she ever wanted. Would you have expected her to kill him as Vile, knowing he would come back to himself?’_

Ghastly tried to talk and the words came out as a grinding whine of pain instead. He tried again. “He—deserved it—he _earned_ it!”

_‘Would it have made you feel any better to know he’d died for his sins before he could even try to make up for them?’_

The thought made the invisible dagger in Ghastly’s chest twist, and his whole body shuddered. His knees went weak and he had to lean against Hopeless and the tree just to keep his feet. When he tried to make his breathing steady, to control the hollow bubble rising up inside him, the air came out in a gasp. “I c- can’t—how am I meant to l- live with this? _How am I meant to live with this_?!”

Hopeless’s hand brushed his face and made him look up, and then he said, silently, words that echoed in Ghastly’s mind as if they had been said aloud. _‘Just get on your feet and don’t stop moving.’_

The bubble popped. Ghastly’s knees buckled, and Hopeless caught him around the shoulders with a grunt, but Ghastly couldn’t help him lower them both to the ground. All he could do was cling, and weep into Hopeless’s shoulder.

 

Tanith turned to Saracen and asked, very calmly, “Does he mean what I think he means?”

For the last six months, she had been going to Ghastly’s shop. The first time she’d gone she had been certain Ghastly wouldn’t let her in, but she had tried anyway. She had seen other people knock on the door with no response until they’d left, people he must have known for longer. Some of them had been Dead Men. Ravel had been one of them. Larrikin had been there a few times—until he started picking the lock and entering without permission. She had seen Shudder go in once or twice as well. He never even bothered to ask, and there was always food in Ghastly’s kitchen afterward.

But for whatever reason she had been the only one Ghastly had _let_ in, and she hadn’t dared do anything to ruin it. She hadn’t talked about his best friends, because what he was feeling now—whatever it was—had to do with them. She had just been there, in case he needed anything. Sometimes they would spar. Sometimes she would sit and read one of his books out loud while he worked. She’d noticed that when she did, the clothes he was making would start to reflect the characters and setting from the narrative.

So when he had asked for her help to get into the Sanctuary without anyone knowing, Tanith had been willing to help. She just hadn’t expected the night to turn out like this. She felt calm, but crystal-calm, with that razor-sharp edge if she fell. Like just before a fight in which she was invested, and if she messed up, it was going to cut up a lot more than just her skin.

Saracen was looking at her, and not answering. They regarded each other, with only the hum of bees inside their hives and Ghastly sobbing to break the silence. Finally Saracen said, “Yes.”

Tanith took a deep breath to acknowledge the adrenaline suddenly rushing through her. “He was implying that Skulduggery was Lord Vile.”

Skulduggery was the one she would have expected to see at the door to his shop at one point or another. He’d never come. And she knew the stories of the war. How he’d vanished. Returned. How Vile had appeared and then vanished. It was all so … so _obvious_ in retrospect, and as she gazed at Saracen, she realised he was far too calm about it. Tired, but calm. Her hand tightened on the grip of her sword. “You knew.”

“I knew,” Saracen agreed.

There were a lot of things Tanith wanted to say. Right now, she had to be professional. Otherwise she didn’t know what she’d do. So she nodded shortly and turned. “I’ll go tell Bliss.”

Saracen stepped in her way. “Don’t,” he said quietly.

The calm frayed. “Get out of my way, Saracen. This is bigger than you and me.”

“No, it’s exactly as big as you and me,” said Saracen. He was resolved. The sort of resolve that usually ended in bloodshed, because the person was willing to throw away everything for the sake of whatever was causing it.

“Your friend is a _war criminal_ ,” Tanith said bluntly. The words came out harsh.

“We’re all war criminals,” said Saracen. “We’ve all done things we regret, in that war.”

Tanith almost laughed. “Lord Vile had a higher body count than Vengeous and Serpine put together, and you call that ‘things to regret’?” She shook her head and stepped forward. He didn’t move. “Get out of my way, Saracen.”

“Over my dead body,” he said evenly, and Tanith’s other hand instinctively fell to her sword as she slid her foot back. Saracen just looked at her. He wasn’t trying to attack. He just wasn’t letting her go. Technically, she’d be within her right to use force. He was preventing her from reporting something that should, that _needed_ , to be reported.

But she looked at him, at his hard face and his set feet, and couldn’t do it. That didn’t stop her from feeling angry, from feeling frustrated. From feeling, inexplicably, betrayed.

“How can you do this?” she asked in a low voice. “He murdered thousands, if not _millions_ , of people. You were there. How could you keep it secret?”

“The same reason Descry did,” said Saracen. “He came back.”

“That doesn’t change what he did!”

“Of course it doesn’t,” Saracen snapped, and then took a deep breath. “Of _course_ it doesn’t,” he repeated. “But what would telling anyone now do, Tanith? Vile is gone. The armour is contained. Skulduggery is back and on _our_ side. If everyone knows, what would happen then?”

“He’d be locked up,” said Tanith, “like he _should_ be.”

“And then what?” Saracen asked. “What about all the criminals that would go free? All the people he can help now, that he couldn’t if he was imprisoned?”

This time Tanith did laugh. “That’s your reasoning? He should get away with _murder_ because he can _help_ people?”

“No.” Saracen’s expression was forbidding. “I’m saying he shouldn’t be locked up because any punishment you can come up with won’t be any worse than what he’s already inflicting on himself, and he may as well help people while he’s being punished.” He stepped forward, and Tanith tensed. “Isn’t the point of arrest to get people dangerous to the public off the streets? Hasn’t Skulduggery proven, over the last two centuries, that he’s not dangerous to the public? That he’s all for _helping_ them? Tanith, if you tell people what he did, the world will never see him as anything other than Lord Vile. And if that happens, he’ll never see _himself_ as anything other than Lord Vile. We’ll never be able to convince him he’s worth more than that.”

“ _Is_ he worth more than that?” Tanith asked pointedly.

“He’s our brother,” Saracen said simply, and Tanith had no answer to that. To the Dead Men, or at least some of the Dead Men, Skulduggery clearly _was_ worth it. Tanith didn’t know how that felt. She hadn’t had anyone so close as to be called family in a very long time. But she didn’t like doing nothing, either.

“What do you want me to do, then?” she asked with helpless frustration.

“Help us,” Saracen said, and Tanith laughed again.

“Help you rehabilitate one of the most evil men in the war?”

“He’s gotten this far. He’s not murdering people anymore.”

“Your idea of encouragement needs work.”

“Probably, but considering where he was, where he is now is one hell of a step up.” He forced a grin at her and while Tanith didn’t grin back, she managed to relax her grip on her sword with a sigh.

“If he starts killing people again—” she started.

“If he starts killing people again, we’ll handle it,” Saracen assured her. “The point of all this is to make sure he has something to live for, so he _won’t_.”

Tanith shook her head. “Last year, I was freelance. Then I was working semi-part-time for the Irish Sanctuary. Now I’m helping a group of the most famous sorcerers in history to hide one of the most famously _evil_ men in history.”

“Tanith Low, welcome to your life.” Saracen turned and walked toward Ghastly and Hopeless, finding his phone in his pocket and punching in a text. Tanith followed, still a little too jumpy for her own comfort. Hopeless looked up as they approached. His eyes had gone back to normal and he looked a lot more haggard from crying than he had before, but he was at least composed enough to acknowledge them. Saracen stooped and picked up a thin knotted rope out of the grass, and handed it to him. Hopeless took it with a quiet nod, but without releasing his grip on Ghastly.

Ghastly’s sobs had eased, but he was still clinging to Hopeless like the man was a lifeline. Tanith wasn’t sure if that was because he hadn’t finished breaking down, or because he just didn’t have the energy to get up. Neither Saracen nor Hopeless seemed inclined to move, though, so Tanith paced around the beehives, breathing deeply and trying to work through her adrenaline.

She wasn’t sure how long it was before anything happened, but eventually there was a light in the trees, and Rover and Shudder came into the meadow. Neither of them looked surprised by the scene, though both were in sleepwear with coats over the top. Shudder nodded toward Tanith, and she managed to nod back. He didn’t, she noticed, look at Saracen, and he gazed past Hopeless as if the redhead wasn’t there.

“Ghastly, how many times do I have to tell you that sleeping on the ground is horrible on your back?” Rover scolded, making a bee-line for the tailor and hugging him from behind. “You silly man. Come on, up up! We’re got a nice soft mattress for you, big boy.”

Between them both Larrikin and Shudder hauled Ghastly to his feet, where he stood slumped with his arms across their shoulders. They turned him and led him away. Saracen helped Hopeless to his feet. Rover didn’t stop talking, so the rest of them followed his fireball and the sound of his voice.

“—divinely soft, because I insisted. Anton would have done with a _bedroll_ , I swear, but he has no taste when it comes to comfortable sleeping. And the pillows! These are really good pillows, Ghastly. These are the soft, down-filled pillows. These are the gods and goddesses of pillows. These are—”

They came out of the trees. The Midnight Hotel was on the front lawn, facing the cottage. They made their way around to the front door and Tanith moved up to open it. When she glanced back she saw Saracen and Hopeless stop, as if they weren’t sure they’d be welcome. Of course they wouldn’t be sure. They had known about Skulduggery, and hadn’t told anyone.

“—I _swear_ , Ghastly, the springs on this bed are the smoothest quietest things you’ve ever heard, and I ought to know, because I can tell you about beds with horrible springs—”

Larrikin got Ghastly through the door. Shudder paused in the entrance and said brusquely, “Are you coming or not?”

Saracen’s face brightened and he stepped forward, but Hopeless didn’t. Saracen stopped and hesitated, and then turned back, but Hopeless shook his head and gave him a gentle push forward. Saracen submitted to the push, jogging up to the Hotel. Tanith went ahead of him, but he handed her the flashlight and skipped forward to take over Shudder’s spot under Ghastly’s arm with a winsome grin and then a grimace.

Shudder was still in the doorway. Tanith stopped and waited, and saw him watching Hopeless with a furrow in his brow. Then he nodded at the redhead and came into the Hotel, and closed the door.

“—sleep like a _log_ , not that you have trouble with that, you great big lump, it’s a good thing we don’t have to go upstairs—”

In spite of everything, Tanith had to smile, even while shaking her head. Sometimes she wondered whether Larrikin even needed to breathe. Then she hesitated, unsure if she should be following. Only for a moment, because Shudder lifted his eyebrow at her and then moved toward the same door Saracen and Rover had, and Tanith took it as tacit invitation.

The bedroom they entered was large, and taking up most of the room was a bed so big it looked like two king-sizes put together, with the split in the middle sewn up. It had to be—well, it had to be big enough for eight men. Where they got sheets for it, Tanith wouldn’t have a clue. She glanced around and spotted a single-bed behind the door.

“—just as well you’re here tonight, because Dexter found someone else’s bed to sleep in and you know how much of a killjoy Anton is. I needed someone to cuddle. You’re an awesome cuddler, Ghastly. I could practically use _you_ as a mattress.”

Saracen and Rover had stopped by the bed. Tanith glanced over just in time to see Saracen unbuckle Ghastly’s suspenders and Rover unbutton Ghastly’s shirt for him. Tanith looked away again, blushing, before anything actually came off, and Shudder handed her an old T-shirt.

“Here. One of Rover’s. Bathroom’s over there.”

He jerked his head toward a door, then went off to help the others undress Ghastly and left Tanith staring blankly down at the T-shirt. She’d joined Rover’s ‘slumber parties’ once or twice before—like when the Baron had been after Valkyrie. But this was different. This was serious. This involved a revelation that could still destroy the Dead Men entirely, and the comfort needed to make that _not_ happen, and they were inviting her to join them in making that not happen.

It had been over a year since Tanith had felt the familiar twinges of hero-worship toward these men, her friends, but right now she was definitely feeling it. That, and uncertainty. Not that she was going to say no, because she was there and while she’d been entertaining vague thoughts of sitting by the door with her sword to make sure they were left undisturbed, it was obvious now that the Dead Men weren’t going to let her be a wallflower.

Still … she shot a glance toward the bed. They’d gotten Ghastly into a pair of sweats and a nightshirt. She tried not to be disappointed she’d missed the process. Saracen had also dressed down to his boxers and a faded Beach Boys T-shirt, and was chivvying Ghastly onto the bed. The tailor fell heavily on his back, like a man without any more strength.

“There, there, big boy,” said Rover, stroking Ghastly’s scars and manoeuvring them both so Ghastly’s head was pillowed in Rover’s lap and Rover was lounging back against the headboard. “Where was I? Oh, yeah. Dexter up and abandoned us for the night, can you believe that? And all he did was send a text. It was rude of him. It was so very rude. And Anton’s still refusing to sleep with me, so you lot have good timing because—”

Saracen crawled onto the bed and flopped next to Ghastly with a sigh. He gathered up one of Rover’s divine pillows and then rolled over so his back was pressed up against Ghastly’s side.

Still, the situation felt a little awkward given that Tanith had once had a fling with Saracen and that she would have very much _liked_ to ... pursue other things … with certain other people on the bed. Tanith told that awkwardness to go kick itself and put the flashlight down on the dresser, and then went to the bathroom, glancing back just once. Shudder had taken a seat by the bed and put his feet up on the single, and reached into the basket near the chair for a rainbow-striped sock that had to belong to Larrikin. It was past midnight and Shudder was going to do some _darning_.

Grinning, Tanith ducked her head and closed the bathroom door, and changed quickly out of her leathers into the tie-dyed T-shirt. Light flickered on the corner of her vision and she looked, and then stopped. Through the window she saw Hopeless walking back toward the trees. Past him she saw firelight and a skeleton in a well-dressed suit.

Skulduggery’s jaw moved, but his words were lost in the distance between them. Hopeless signed a response, but Tanith couldn’t see what he said past his body. Skulduggery tilted his head in a way she recognised as puzzlement. Then he nodded, just once, and turned, and Tanith watched them walk together back into the trees.


	8. Tír Tairngire

When Dexter woke up, he didn’t know where he was. That wasn’t so bad, because it had happened a lot during the war. He’d gotten used to waking up at the Hotel over the decades, but that didn’t mean he woke up uneasy just because he didn’t immediately know where he was.

The part where he remembered was the part that made it hard. It didn’t take long. The sound of waves lapping against the canal was enough.

Dexter spent some time staring up at the ceiling. It was a plain ceiling, aside from the sigils carved into it as a lighting system. He didn’t need it right now. The sunlight coming in through the window lit the room enough. It was a decent-sized room. Not too much for one person, but not too small. Dexter rolled over to look out the window. The fresh salt air did more to wake him up than the location did. Of course, the ocean was part of the location.

The view from the window wasn’t gorgeous. It wasn’t ugly, but Dexter could imagine there were much better views from higher up. Erskine’s apartment was on the ground … for a given definition of ‘ground’. It looked straight down the Watercourse. Dexter could see some kind of permanent pavilion in the middle, and beyond it one of the districts, and to the side the distant line of the ocean. The pavilion looked like the sort of thing used during festivals or at night. When it was lit up, it probably looked quite pretty.

Last night Dexter had followed Erskine home in a daze, with just enough wherewithal to refuse to go to bed unless Erskine came with him. This morning, Erskine was already gone and although Dexter no longer felt exactly _numb_ , the view out the window still made his gut turn over.

He rolled over again and got up, exchanging the nightclothes he’d borrowed from Erskine for the civvies he’d been wearing the day before. So long as he ignored the view and the smell of the ocean, he could almost believe he was in a motel somewhere other than the city he’d thought was a dream until he looked out the window.

He didn’t even know its name yet. Erskine had obeyed his request not to talk about it anymore all the way home last night. It was probably just as well at the time, but right now Dexter was feeling distinctly ignorant. When he exited the bedroom, Erskine was nowhere to be seen, so Dexter was going to suffer in his ignorance for a while longer.

There wasn’t a fridge. Dexter methodically opened each cupboard until he found the one with sigils keeping it cold inside, and found enough fixings for a breakfast of—actually it was mostly eggs. There wasn’t any ham or bacon, and while there were a couple of tomatoes, they looked like they’d been in there for a little too long. There was bread, though.

The stovetop consisted of sigils on the counter. Within half an hour Dexter had scrambled eggs on toast. There was no butter and there was no milk, but there was coffee, so he made himself a cup without milk _or_ sugar, and sat down to a breakfast in a strange apartment which belonged to a friend he thought he knew.

Dexter very deliberately didn’t think about any of that. He just polished off his breakfast, dumped the dishes in the sink, and then walked out the front door, locking it behind him.

The apartment’s back looked onto the Watercourse. Its front stoop came out onto a cobblestone boulevard which ran parallel to the Watercourse, except for the lanes that arced down to meet the water. It couldn’t be too late in the morning, because Dexter’s phone had said the time was the very early morning in Ireland, but the sun wasn’t far up in this area of the world and there were already a few people ambling down the street.

Dexter glanced this way and that. In the distance on one side he could see trees through the buildings, and Erskine had said the only park in the city was the Fiddler’s Green. But Dexter didn’t really want to be reminded of last night, so he picked the opposite direction and started walking. At least he’d know generally where he was going. From what he’d seen last night the city layout was fairly straightforward. Then again, that had been in the dark and from two hundred feet up, and it didn’t guarantee he knew where to go.

Thinking, Dexter decided, was going to be something that wasn’t on the agenda today. Thinking made it hard to act. Thinking threatened to make that numbness come back. Thinking, right now, was _not_ going to help.

So Dexter wandered down the street and deliberately didn’t think, and just observed instead. The streetlights overhead were dark. He remembered seeing them last night. Now he stopped beside one and looked up, and spotted the sigils engraved on the underside.

“Most of the city is powered by sigils,” Erskine said behind him, and Dexter jumped and yelped and spun. Erskine almost smiled. Almost. There was something blank in his eyes as he watched Dexter, but Dexter knew him too well to be fooled into thinking it was anything other than worry.

“How long have you been there?” he demanded.

Erskine shrugged. “I was coming from the other direction when you came out.”

“Typical,” Dexter grumbled, and pointed up. “Have you been cribbing off China?”

Erskine’s shoulders relaxed and he smiled slightly. “Oh, well, she spends so much time stealing from everyone _else_ …”

Dexter laughed, and for a moment there was a silence that couldn’t decide whether it wanted to be companionable or awkward. Dexter made the decision for it. “Tell me about these lights.”

“Sigils,” Erskine repeated, and came closer. “When the city was founded, we had to do things the old-fashioned way, but after a point we realised there wasn’t any need to. Oil and coal were hard to come by and electricity wasn’t a world-wide phenomenon just yet, or not enough for us, so sigils were the most logical choice. It’s worked well. The biggest cost in using them is having a linguistic mason come around to do the maintenance.”

“A linguistic—” Dexter shook his head. “Just for kicks, let’s pretend I’ll have a meltdown if I think about things too hard, and thus need everything explained to me.”

Erskine smiled. “Linguistic mason. It’s basically what it sounds like: someone who works with sigils and stone. When the city was first being built, we needed to hire a sigil-master and a mason separately, but then someone decided to specialise in both at once and it became a highly sought-after profession.”

“There can’t be many of them,” Dexter said, looking up at the light. “Not for this level of complexity.”

“There’s more than you think. Once the sigils are established, the hard part is engraving them. The researchers at the university are the ones who develop the sigils. The masons just carve them. Most sigil-masons are employed by the city because of the sheer number of facilities which rely on them, but there’s a good handful in construction too. They just don’t go off and experiment with the sigils on their own unless they’re licenced to.”

They started walking again. “So what I’m getting from this,” said Dexter, “is that you’ve gone and put laws on China’s field of magic.” He grinned. “She’d _hate_ you.”

“I bask in the warmth of her hatred.”

“I’ll bet you do. What about those Teleporting circles? Did you get them from China too?”

“No,” said Erskine, and now he looked sheepish. “Actually, I cribbed them from Anton. They run along the same principle as the Midnight Hotel. They don’t use leys, though. They use a system of sigils running throughout the city. And their range is only about two hundred feet, with a ten-foot safety margin, which is why that’s the height of the Decks.”

“That doesn’t make any sense,” said Dexter as the houses between the boulevard and the ocean ended, opening up into a view of the Watercourse. There were actually some salt-resistant bushes lining the water’s edge. “If you’ve got the circles, why bother with the ferries? Even with a limited range, you can hop from one to the next without needing a ferry at all.”

“Except that you can’t,” said Erskine. “That’s one of the reasons why Anton had to put the Hotel on leys, instead of just drawing a marker-sigil in a few hundred places around the world. I mean, aside from the fact that it’s much more flexible. The sigils need to draw power from something in order to work, and in small, distilled circles like these, they draw power from the people they’re Teleporting. It’s a bit like exercising too soon after eating—the exact limitations depend on the person, but there’s a general safety margin. You can use the circles safely twice inside an hour, and chances are you’d be alright with a third, but there’s no point in pushing it.”

“That’s why we walked here from the Deck last night.”

Erskine nodded. “We had to use the circle on Northside Deck to get up there, and then again to reach Southside. You’re not used to the circles. There was no reason to take the risk you’d react badly by using one to hit the boulevard.”

“Alright.” Dexter looked up and took a deep, slow breath. Central’s tower rose up on one side of him, not looming but soaring. To the other side he could see the heights of the other district towers, shorter but no less magnificent in the early morning sunlight. The Irish one was the nearest; Ireland’s banner flapped from the spire at the height of the tower. Dexter thought he could see South Africa’s flag on the district tower to his left.

He exhaled just as slowly and looked down again, and reminded himself that he wasn’t going to think. He looked at their immediate surroundings instead. At the people just coming out of their houses. A number of them looked like office-workers, but there were some children darting down the stairs and shouting goodbyes. One of them flipped her skateboard onto the road and stepped up on it, and then shoved at the air in a very familiar motion. She shot down the street, manoeuvring with practised ease between the other commuters.

Dexter stared, and stopped walking without meaning to. He had seen it last night, but given how hard he was trying not to think the realisation hadn’t truly sunk in. Now it seemed especially obvious given the presence of the sigils. “She used magic. In public.”

Erskine had stopped with him. “Yes,” he agreed calmly, with the tone of someone who had known this was coming. “She did.”

“In _public_ , Erskine.” Dexter swallowed hard through the tightness in his throat. “Is—this city—is everyone here a sorcerer?”

“No,” said Erskine simply.

“But—” Dexter motioned toward the girl vanishing around the corner. “In public!”

Erskine’s mouth twitched, and he pointed. “So are they.”

Dexter followed the gesture just in time to see a flash of colour shooting past on the water, accompanied by spray. He flinched back and then watched with wide eyes as a laughing band of teens shot past. Two were on boards, their hands angled down to generate their push against the water. A third was on a bike which Dexter would have assumed had an engine if he hadn’t caught the glow of the sigils on its base and dash. But when he glanced forward to catch the fourth, the one in the front, he saw she was on skis and leaned back against a line leading to a harnessed dolphin.

That distinct sensation of being in a dream had returned. Dexter swallowed through a dry mouth. “What—Erskine, what is this place?”

“Tír Tairngire,” said Erskine. “We call it the Tír for short. It’s not a city of sorcerers, Dex. Only about a third of the population is magical, if that. The rest are mortal.” Dexter watched the teens round a buoy with a lash of spray and whooping laughter. His ears were ringing again, but he could still hear Erskine speaking through it. “That’s why we rely so heavily on sigils. Mortals can use them too. That boy on the waterbike just then—there’s a good chance he’s not magical at all. And the girl with the dolphin, unless she’s a beastspeaker, is probably mortal too. Dolphins don’t like Elementals all that much. They think we cheat. They’re more likely to partner with a mortal.”

“You make it sound like it’s a common thing to partner with dolphins,” was all Dexter could think to say.

“They’re smart animals,” Erskine said, “and there’s been a number of family groups in the area for several generations now.” He shrugged. “So it’s not entirely uncommon, no. Until the bikes were developed, dolphins or sailboards were the only way mortals could travel the Watercourse at speed for fun. We’ve gotten pretty good at finding inclusive alternatives, but dolphin-skiing has been a favourite sport for decades now.”

‘We’. Dexter had done well at ignoring the ‘we’. He was finding it harder the more he heard it. This city—it was Erskine’s. The way the border-guards had reacted the night before, and the awe displayed by the commuters on the Deck … they knew him. And not just as a Dead Man. They had called him ‘prince’. A ruler. A leader.

The prince of Tír Tairngire.

“Dexter?”

The hand on his shoulder made Dexter turn, and he tried to smile at Erskine’s worried face. “Remember how I said I was trying not to think? It’s not working.”

“Do you want to go home?”

Home. Erskine didn’t have a flat in Dublin. He stayed at the Hotel or at Descry’s, or even Ghastly’s shop. Yet he called his apartment here ‘home’.

Dexter shook his head almost violently and then blurted, “Erskine, are you the _prince_ here?”

Erskine’s expression soured. It was the exact expression he’d worn whenever he was torn between amusement, resignation and indignation. He’d worn it a lot around Rover early in their collective association. “I’m not. I was just the first governor, when the city was young. I’ve been trying to get people to stop calling me that for decades.”

“But you founded it,” Dexter persisted. “You’re the one who put it together. You made it happen.”

Erskine sighed and turned to keep walking. Dexter hurried to keep up. For several moments neither of them spoke, but Dexter was willing to let Erskine collect his thoughts. When the Elemental spoke, he spoke in Irish for the relative privacy. “When I was rescued by the Torment, I spent nearly a year recovering with the Children of the Spider.”

“I remember,” said Dexter.

“The conditions they lived in were terrible, Dex. They lived in slums. In wreckage. And our side didn’t even acknowledge their help after the war.” Erskine looked down at his feet, kicking at the cobblestone. “They were bitter. They didn’t hide their bitterness, either. But over that year, I—I had to blame someone for the way they were treated. For my being left behind. I couldn’t blame you, so … I blamed the same people the Children did. The people they saw as having made it necessary to live in secrecy.”

Dexter frowned. “But they blamed mortals.”

Erskine looked up and gave him a twisted smile. “So did I.”

And this, Dexter realised with a sort of slow dawning, was why Erskine had been ashamed to tell the rest of them about the Children. Because he had _sympathised_ with them. “But this city—”

“I was vulnerable,” Erskine interrupted, and where before he’d barely been able to look Dexter in the eye, now it was as if he didn’t dare break the gaze. “I was—I was vulnerable, after what Mevolent did. I needed someone to blame and the Children gave me a good scapegoat. I don’t—” He laughed quietly. Wryly. “I don’t really understand the reasoning now, which is probably a good sign, but back then it made sense. If we hadn’t been forced to hide then the world would be different. Perhaps I wouldn’t have betrayed us to Mevolent so completely if Descry hadn’t had a secret to betray. If he hadn’t been forced to hide.” He shook his head and his gaze dropped back to the cobbles, his shoulders hunched, his hands in his pockets. “It doesn’t matter now. But at the time, it did. So badly. When the war was over, and the Children went unrecognised—I couldn’t just sit and do nothing. I needed to take action. I’d have gone about it in the complete wrong way if it weren’t for Hopeless.”

His voice had gone soft. The way he said Descry’s name was as if he was trying hard not to think too deeply on the person. “He took me to a few third-world countries. Showed me some real poverty. The Children still lived in awful conditions … but he showed me that poverty isn’t dependant on having magic or not. And then he challenged me with a project. He told me that to continue my recovery I’d need something to do with myself.” He motioned to the city with a sweep of his hand. “This is what I came up with. A city where no one has to hide. A city where mortals and sorcerers can live together without fear.”

Dexter looked around. The street was filling, slowly, with people. It was large enough for vehicles, but he hadn’t seen any yet. Maybe sigil-powered cars were still in development. Most people were just walking. A good number were congregating on a platform extending out onto the water, where a ferry was docking. He couldn’t tell who was magical and who wasn’t. Even if he counted the ones who were using it in public, like the woman in a jogging outfit who had just turned into a wolf, that didn’t mean the ones not using magic were mortal. It wasn’t like sorcerers needed to show off their power every minute of the day.

They stopped by the railing, which dropped down into the water ten feet below. There was a line of deactivated waterbikes bobbing against the wall.

“I honestly didn’t expect it to work,” Erskine said, still in Irish. “Even in those early years, I didn’t believe it, but I had to give it my best showing or I’d never be able to honestly say I tried. The Torment was the one who rescued me from Mevolent, but I was better friends with Madam Mist. She was the one I went to with the idea. If I could sell it to her, she could sell it to the others.” Erskine shook his head and laughed quietly. “And it wasn’t easy, either. She believed just as much as the others that mortals weren’t worthy of her respect. But if she was going to be respected she wanted to come by it honestly, and she was willing to take the risk if it meant changing their circumstances.”

“What about the mortals? Where did they come from?”

“Refugees,” said Erskine. “People displaced by war—ours and theirs. Beggars, prostitutes, people looking for a new life and willing to brave magic to do it. There was less than a hundred of us, those first few years, and all of us suspicious. I was the governor. I had no idea if I’d be able to keep us all together. But when my term ended, a decade later, the community was still intact, and the next governor was a mortal.”

There were dozens of questions crowding Dexter’s tongue. He didn’t know which one to ask first, so he let them choose, and wound up blurting, “How did you all _get_ here? We’re in the middle of the ocean.”

Erskine grinned and beckoned, and cut across the boulevard to slip down a lane in the direction of the Green. Dexter followed. “That’s what I needed Creyfon for,” Erskine explained. “If the city got to be as large as I hoped, we’d need to be able to hide until we were ready to show the world what we could do. I knew he could access other dimensions, and he lived in Roarhaven at the time. He was able to combine our dimension and another, uninhabited one. Don’t ask me the mechanics; I don’t know the details. But the result was that we found a segment of land in the middle of the ocean where we could hide in plain sight. Creyfon was the one who built the dimensional bridges in and out.”

He pointed at the trees over the buildings, and above them, Central’s tower. “This spit of land is where Central’s foundation is located. It’s the heart of the city. It’s where our oldest buildings are, the ones that are left.”

“But the bridge from Roarhaven comes out in the Éire District,” Dexter pointed out.

“We had it moved,” said Erskine, “when it became clear the city was growing large enough to need districts. We were prepared for that; Sister Ariadne, one of the Children, is the architect. She’s been in on things from the beginning. She designed the city to prepare for representational districts with bridges leading to each of the Cradles. We wanted to be inclusive to the world.”

“ _When_ was the city founded?”

“Nineteen-twelve,” Erskine said, and Dexter had to take a deep breath. It was cooler in the lanes between buildings, but he managed not to shiver.

“Let me get this straight,” he said calmly. He had no right to be angry. None at all. He just had to keep reminding himself of that. “You’ve been keeping this … this piece of genius artwork a secret for nearly _one hundred years_.”

Erskine glanced over his shoulder. His eyes looked dark in the shadows, and somehow Dexter didn’t think he’d managed to hide his anger as much as he’d wanted. “That was the point,” Erskine answered. “The world’s not ready for this kind of revelation. I can’t make it to sorcerers and not to mortals too. That would undermine the reason for the city’s existence.”

“But you didn’t tell _us_ ,” Dexter said as evenly as he could. Us. The Dead Men.

They stopped at the end of the lane. Dexter could see the line of trees behind Erskine, on the other side of another boulevard. The Green. He didn’t look. He was meeting Erskine’s gaze, and watching the tick in the Elemental’s face.

“You don’t have the right to accuse me of keeping secrets,” Erskine said after a moment, in a low voice. Dexter looked away, and for a few moments they stood in awkward silence.

“Come on,” Erskine said finally, and turned. “I want to show you something.”


	9. In remembrance

Erskine led Dexter across the boulevard. This one had a crosswalk, and there were actually a few cars on the road. None of them had exhaust-pipes, and Dexter caught a glimpse of glowing dashboards, so apparently sigil-powered cars had already been developed. There still weren’t many—a bare handful in comparison to how many there would have been in any other city of a similar size.

The Fiddler’s Green was much like any other park. It had been designed rather than grown naturally, Erskine had implied the night before, due to trouble growing it in the first place. It was divided from the boulevard by a line of trees, and the trees in it were thick enough to obscure the tower in the centre at a casual glance. Within a few minutes of walking, Dexter could well believe they weren’t in a city at all—unless he looked up.

It was quiet. Peaceful, even. There were a few people around, walking or studying. Dexter even saw a fellow with a violin, and smiled with grim amusement. Fiddler’s Green indeed.

Eventually they came out into a clearing. At least, it was sort-of a clearing; there was grass, and enough of a gap in the canopy for the sunlight to filter through, but there was also an oddly-shaped stretch of concrete situated in front of a monument. Dexter frowned down at the concrete. It wasn’t even square. It was vaguely rectangular, but only in the sense of a house being rectangular in spite of outcroppings of small rooms and windows, and—

Wait. He knew that shape.

“Erskine,” he said, stopping in front of the concrete and glancing up at the other sorcerer. Erskine grunted without stopping as he moved across it. “Is this foundation here for the Midnight Hotel?”

Now Erskine paused, and shrugged in a manner Dexter knew indicated sheepishness. “I cribbed a _lot_ of things from the Hotel. It seemed like the least I could do.”

Because he’d meant to tell them all along. Because he had probably been trying to find a way for years, without knowing quite what was the right time, or whether he was ready to give up his big project to everyone else. Suddenly Dexter found he couldn’t be angry, because this of all things proved Erskine hadn’t _meant_ to keep the secret for as long as he had, or at least not for much longer. Dexter shook his head and laughed, and stepped onto the concrete.

“You’re an idiot,” he said as he passed Erskine. “All you needed to say to make _me_ an idiot was ‘I left a place for Anton’s Hotel’.”

“I’m a gentleman,” said Erskine with a grumble. “Gentleman don’t deliberately humiliate their lessers.”

“Since when?”

“So you admit you’re my lesser?”

“Only in your dreams, Ravel.” They grinned at each other and even though the grins weren’t quite as genuine as they would have been a year ago, they were easy to summon. “So what did you want to show me?” Dexter asked.

“This,” Erskine said, nodding at the monument and stopping in front of it. When Dexter followed his gaze, he saw it was an engraved memorial, marble and square-cut. Then he realised that each of the engravings was a name, and he stopped beside Erskine. “This was one of the first things we built after we came through. It was supposed to be a reminder of why we were creating the city: so that no one would ever have to suffer through a war like that again. A war where sorcerers think they can subjugate mortals. A war where mortals force sorcerers to hide with their simple existence.”

Dexter’s stomach flip-flopped, but he stepped forward, gazing up. They had started from the bottom, and built upward so they’d never run out of space. “All these names … they’re from the war?”

“All of them,” said Erskine quietly, moving up beside him. “Sorcerers. Mortals.” He reached up and his fingers brushed a name that said, simply, ‘Rose’. The air beside them shimmered and a hologram appeared, one of a woman—little more than a girl, really—with a heart-shaped face and enough of a tinge in her hair for Dexter to tell it had been red. Erskine watched her fade away with a detached expression. The sort that hid a deep, deep pain. “Most of them came from Descry. If he said a name should go on the memorial, no one argued. On it went.”

“ _Everyone_?” Dexter moved around the stone, eyes searching. Most of the names were in English or Irish, but a great many were in other languages as well. His gaze caught on one and he reached up to touch it. The hologram that appeared was a man, tall and green-eyed and with a roguish smile. Dexter blinked. “Wow. Skulduggery really _was_ handsome when he was alive.”

Erskine snorted. Dexter ignored him and continued his perusal. The names of Skulduggery’s family were next to his. Dexter didn’t touch them. “Is this why you called the place the Fiddler’s Green? After the song by John Connelly?”

“Yes,” Erskine admitted. “It seemed appropriate, given we’re on the ocean, and the ... circumstances.”

“The Fiddler’s Green is a place I heard tell,” Dexter murmured, “where fishermen go when they don’t go to hell. Where the weather is fair and the dolphins do play; and the cold coast of Greenland is far, far away.” He saw Mistress Aoife’s name too, and left it alone. That was for Ghastly to touch. Instead he moved around the memorial, sliding his hand along the names and watching their owners materialise and vanish in grey static. Then he stopped short, and stared at one particular name, a name he hadn’t seen written for centuries.

“Where the skies are all clear and there’s never a gale,” Erskine continued, tilting his head back as if to bask in the one long patch of sunlight through the trees. “And the fish jump on board with one swish of their tail. Where you lie at your leisure, there’s no work to do, and the skipper’s below making tea for the crew. Now I don’t want a harp nor a halo, not me; just give me a breeze and a good rolling sea. I’ll play my old squeeze-box as we sail along, with the wind in the rigging to sing me a song.”

Erskine had a good voice, and while he didn’t sing often he never sang anything badly. Not even on purpose. Dexter wished he was more like Rover or Saracen, or even himself, in that regard—deliberately singing off-tune when they did. As it was the song sounded more like a quiet lament, and Dexter swallowed through the lump in his throat.

“Dex?”

Dexter turned to see Erskine looking at him. Then he glanced away, back toward the name, and brushed it with his fingers. The hologram that appeared was a spitting image of himself—except for the cocky smile and the arrogant tilt of the hologram’s chin.

_Éanne Séaghdha._

Enda Shea.

“Your brother?” Erskine said quietly, even though it really wasn’t in question, and Dexter nodded. The name was written in Irish. Enda would have appreciated that. He’d taken after their father in that way—clinging to old traditions and brutally disdaining anything mortals had brought to Ireland. Dexter had chosen his name in English. He hadn’t stayed long enough after choosing it to know how his father had reacted to that, but he had relished the imagining during the first difficult years of being disinherited.

He let his brother’s hologram fade, and looked up and saw a row of familiar names at the top. “You put Meritorious, Tome and Morwenna on here.”

“Serpine murdered two of them in his bid to continue the war after a hiatus,” said Erskine, “and Morwenna died … as a direct result of actions taken during the war. I thought it was fitting.”

“It is. What’s that space for?” Dexter pointed to the clear area above those three names. It took Erskine a second to respond. When he did, his voice was quiet.

“The Edgleys.”

Dexter’s gaze flicked along the line and found Gordon’s name before Meritorious’s. “The ones the Baron took?”

“Yes.”

“So why aren’t they on there?”

“Because I don’t know most of their names.”

Because that was something he would have asked Descry, Dexter realised, and couldn’t. Or felt like he couldn’t. He shook his head. “We’re all idiots.”

“All?” Erskine raised an eyebrow.

“ _All_ ,” Dexter confirmed. “Look at us. Standing around and not talking to each other, and the not-talking hurts as much as the talking would. Or more. We need to get over ourselves.”

“What Skulduggery did is hard to ‘get over’,” Erskine said flatly.

“But you’re angrier at Descry than you are at Skulduggery,” Dexter pointed out, turning to face him properly and crossing his arms. “Because Descry did what he always does: he keeps secrets for the good of the unit.”

“This isn’t the kind of secret you can just _keep_ ,” Erskine snapped.

“Would you rather he’d told?” Dexter demanded. “Right after we were all together again? Right after the first time Ghastly smiled in months?”

Erskine opened his mouth, closed it, and looked away. “It was—”

“It wasn’t a lie,” Dexter cut in. “Erskine, why do you think Skulduggery came back at all? I’m not going to call Vile a lie, because that would demean everyone who suffered at his hands, but that doesn’t mean Skulduggery’s return or Ghastly’s relief that he was back were based on one themselves. Didn’t you just tell me that you’d have been willing to see mortals enslaved by sorcerers?”

“I didn’t say enslaved,” Erskine mumbled.

Dexter shrugged. “Ruled. Whatever word you want to use, you blamed them. You admitted you could have done stupid things because of it. Does that make this city a lie? And _don’t_ tell me that you never went ahead with any of it so it doesn’t count.”

He added the last quickly, because Erskine opened his mouth. The Elemental hesitated. “No.”

“So maybe, just like you’re using this city to heal what Mevolent did to you, Skulduggery is using his detective work to heal what he did as well.”

Erskine sighed. “Alright. Fine. So we’re even more alike than I thought we were. So?”

“So if Skulduggery’s the one who committed all the crimes, why is Descry the one you’re angry at?” Dexter shook his head. “Erskine, I only know because I watched Descry experience a nightmare so terrible he couldn’t wake up, even with me right there beside him. Can you imagine how he must have felt, knowing and refusing to tell? And if he _had_ told, it wouldn’t have done anything. It would have just spread the pain.”

For a long time Erskine looked up at the sky. Then he admitted reluctantly, “I don’t know. I—I understand, sort-of, how Skulduggery could have been driven to losing it. I don’t understand how he could have been driven to murder so many people, but I understand why he needed to do _something_.”

“But you don’t understand why Descry might want to say nothing, is that it?”

“I understand that too.”

“Then why are you so angry with him?”

“I don’t know.” Erskine looked at the memorial and touched Skulduggery’s name. He watched the skeleton’s human hologram materialise and tilt his head inquisitively. “Because … because it means someone else in the unit was as broken as I was, and if I’d known earlier, maybe things would have been easier. Having someone else who understood.”

“And Skulduggery didn’t? I remember the two of you going off to chat a few times. You didn’t need to know to feel comforted back then.”

Erskine looked down as his feet and dug the toe of his shoes into the grass. “Dexter, Descry was held captive by Mevolent for two weeks. That’s longer than I was. He wasn’t tortured because Mevolent wanted him healthy, but he’s a mind-reader. They didn’t need to torture him physically to torture him mentally.”

“I was there,” Dexter said. “I remember.”

“I told him everything. _Everything_. I relived it all. I didn’t have to, because he already knew, but I did it anyway, because he said I should.” Erskine looked up. “He never told me anything. He didn’t trust me enough to talk about what he experienced. He keeps things so close, Dex, have you noticed? We barely know who he is half the time. We’re all pouring into his head whenever we’re in range. What does he give us back?”

Dexter let the words fade and then lifted his eyebrow. “You mean besides the fact that he’s the reason you’re right now sane and not angling for world domination?”

“That’s not what I meant,” Erskine said flatly. “Friendship is meant to be a two-way street, Dex. When was the last time Descry submitted anything to us, for us to hold and keep for him?”

“Hold still.” Dexter stepped forward and punched Erskine in the arm. Erskine jerked away too late and yelped, and rubbed the spot. Dexter folded his arms again and stood glaring until Erskine had looked up at him. “I stand by what I said before: you’re an idiot. You’re also a jackass. Why do you think _Descry’s_ sane right now? Because of us. He trusts us with the whole of his being, Erskine. We’re the ones who define him. That’s what he wants. Why do you think he hasn’t tried to talk to you in six months? Because he can’t. Because Descry reflects the state of the unit, and the unit’s broken.”

“It wasn’t before,” Erskine muttered. “And now my hand’s gone numb. My whole _arm’s_ gone numb.”

Dexter rolled his eyes. “You’ll live. Erskine, if you ever wanted to know something specifically, why don’t you just _ask_? Descry’s never bothered to hide when he has secrets. He just asks us not to ask about it. Hell, he knew about this city since the beginning and he never let on to the rest of us. Let Descry be Descry. We keep him sane. He keeps our secrets. We don’t need anything else.”

“Dex—” Erskine looked up, and in the shadow cast on this side of the memorial, he looked tired. “What if Descry made a mistake?”

“So what if he did? Everyone makes mistakes.”

“Yes, but—what if he made a mistake about more than just …”

He didn’t finish the sentence, because there were any number of ways the sentence could have finished. More than just the Baron’s plans last year. More than just keeping Skulduggery’s secret. More than just _revealing_ Skulduggery’s secret.

_What if,_ he was really asking, _Descry made a mistake about_ me _?_

Dexter sighed and reached out to grip Erskine’s shoulder. “This city,” he said, “is the most ambitious, gloriously insane secret I’ve ever heard, and it’s _not_ a mistake.”

A corner of Erskine’s mouth tilted up. “Thanks, Dex.”

“And if you did that on purpose just so I’d flatter you, I’m going to turn your other arm numb.”

“Thanks, Dex.”

“No, seriously. What, are you unhappy with who you are today? Do you think Descry somehow _defines_ your whole self?”

“I’ve got it, thanks, Dex.”

“Have you forgotten that Descry barely ever tries to influence any of our choices unless he really, absolutely, unequivocally—”

“I said I’m good, Dex.”

“That’s what you _claim_ , but I’ve yet to see the evidence for myself.”

They grinned at each other and it was an even better grin than the one before. Then Erskine sighed and rubbed his head. “I’m sure I had a point in bringing you here.”

“I don’t think it matters anymore.”

“I suppose it doesn’t.” Erskine moved around the memorial and started walking toward the tower rising above the trees. “In that case, we should get down to business.”

Dexter straightened, and he felt himself tense as he followed. “Peregrine?”

“He’s fine,” Erskine said with a wave of his hand, and then hesitated. “Well, no, he’s still in recovery and he hasn’t been all that coherent when he’s woken up, but at least he _has_ woken up and that’s a good sign. It’s not about Peregrine, Dex. It’s about Fletcher Renn.”

“What about—” Dexter frowned. “Wait. How did you know his name? I didn’t tell you his name.”

Erskine winced. “He’s here.”

There was a pause. Dexter meant to say something in it, but he couldn’t quite find the right words. Finally he said, “He’s here.”

“Yes.”

“Here, in the city.”

“That’s right.”

“One of only two Teleporters left in the world, the one that most people don’t even know exist, and he’s here.”

“Will you stop that?”

“How?”

“Try closing your mouth.”

Dexter rolled his eyes and smiled in spite of himself. “I mean ‘how did he get here?’”

“It’s what the city is _for_ ,” Erskine explained. “Fletcher was leaving his tracks all over the place. Stories of a vanishing boy. Hotel managers being fired or sued for letting out suites for free. We keep an eye on things like that, because it usually means a new sorcerer acting out. When that happens, there’s usually a cause. A lot of the time, it’s someone in need of guidance and a new life. And we provide that.”

“So you got Renn to come here.”

“Well, yes.” Erskine grimaced. “It didn’t work as well as we thought. No one told him that he wouldn’t be able to Teleport out of the city. The dimensional wards prevent that.”

“And of course, being a teenage Teleporter used to being able to go anywhere he wants …” Dexter continued.

“He’s refusing to have anything to do with us. He hasn’t adhered to his schedule in months. The only person he even lets close to him is his caseworker. The Guard has taken to just having a pair of binoculars on his favourite haunts.” They came out of the trees and into the paved square which made the tower’s foundation. There were a few people around the sigil-circle to the side, but others moving in and out of the great glass doors.

“What about food and shelter?” Dexter asked. Erskine shrugged.

“There’s no such thing as hotels here. Not the way he’s used to. There’s free accommodation for people new to the Tír at the hostels in Central’s outer circle. He’s using those.”

“That’s it?”

“He was stealing at first,” said Erskine, “but one of the Guard managed to track him down and warned him that if he kept that up, we were perfectly capable of binding his magic and putting him in a holding cell to cool his heels. But his caseworker insists we shouldn’t resort to that unless he actively does something past petty theft, and I agree. We’re meant to be a refuge. We’d never gain his trust if we locked him up because it’s the only way we can control him.”

“Does that kind of petty crime happen a lot?”

“Some,” Erskine admitted, leading Dexter toward the sigil-circle. “But we don’t have a defined class system. The city’s too small, and grew from too tightly-knit a group. The biggest potential divide is the one between sorcerers and mortals, and we put a lot of effort into mending that. So the people who would usually act out are people new to the Tír, and they’re the people we want to convince we’re worth trusting, so we’re fairly lenient when it comes to that sort of misdemeanour. To a point.”

“And more serious crimes?” Dexter asked. “How do you enforce that when a good chunk of the population can do magic and the rest can’t?”

Erskine hesitated. “You know what, why don’t I just show you Central’s precinct? You might find it relevant, anyway.”

“That didn’t answer my question,” Dexter grumbled as they joined the line at the sigil-circle. They were, he noticed, getting a few stares and whispers, but either most people were used to seeing Erskine around this part of the city or they assumed he was some sort of fan.

Erskine laughed. “Where would be the fun in that?”

“The part where I don’t make your arm go numb again.”

“Oh, fine,” Erskine grumbled. “You remember the rifle Blair had last night? And how Alice didn’t have one?”

“I remember.”

“It’s like a Taser, but it’s got a special charge to interrupt magic for a few seconds when it hits. And every officer keeps magic-binding handcuffs. All they need is good aim.”

“Going up,” someone in the circle announced.

Dexter waited until they were in the circle and the sigils had lit up before leaning in to whisper, “You stole that from Descry, didn’t you?”

The world shifted. The light from the sigils faded. Dexter looked around Central Deck, Northside, and recognised where the ferry had brought them the night before. There were a lot more people up here than there had been on the ground, and they were shooed quickly off the circle so others could use it.

Erskine gave him an impassive look. “Of course not. Descry had a _stick_.”

“He had a shock-stick.”

“He had a stick that, occasionally, was electrified, and which charged on his magic. He couldn’t even throw bolts with it. All _I_ did was improve on it.”

“ _You_?” Dexter lifted an eyebrow as they moved through the crowd. There were stores and eating-areas on this Deck too, but most of them seemed to be stalls and buffets instead of shop-fronts like on the Éire Deck. He wondered how they managed to stay in place with the wind, then realised there _wasn’t_ any wind past a light breeze, and glanced toward the rail to see the glow of sigils along the edge of the Deck. He turned back to Erskine. “ _You_ improved on it?”

“Well, no,” Erskine admitted. “I borrowed Descry’s stick and loaned it to the developers downstairs until they came up with a weapon anyone could use against sorcerers. And then I gave the stick back. Either way, the rifles are more effective than Descry’s stick.”

“That depends on who’s using it.”

“True.”

The tower’s inside felt cleaner. Less salty, and a little warmer than the Deck. There were probably sigils at work for that, too, keeping the environment comfortable. Dexter could only shake his head and marvel at the feats of linguistic engineering that must have taken. China might actually have given her own right arm to see it. Or maybe her left, anyway.

There was a fair amount of traffic inside, but only because the lane cut through the tower to the other side, like a shopping arcade. Dexter looked around as Erskine led him down the centre. On both sides, interrupted by the occasional café, were long lines of identical doors which Dexter realised were sigil-powered elevators when one opened and disgorged people onto the Deck.

“Oy.” He frowned and reached out to tug Erskine’s sleeve, and pointed. “Are you telling me we walked _down a two-hundred-foot spiral staircase_ last night when we could have taken an _elevator_?”

Erskine shrugged. “You looked like you needed the time to adjust.”

“My legs were killing me this morning.”

“They were not.”

“Oh, fine, they weren’t, but they weren’t happy, either.” Dexter watched people move on and off the elevators, and shook his head. “Again, what’s the point in the circles?”

“The elevators don’t go all the way down to the bottom,” Erskine said. “They just go to the different levels in-between the Deck and the ground—or the Deck and the tower’s height.”

“So when the tower was designed, why didn’t your architect make them go all the way to the bottom? Or the top?”

“We’d intended to, but by the time the tower was being built to the Deck-level, we already had linguistic experts and engineers,” Erskine said. “They decided it was a waste of resources building elevators that could reach that far. It would have meant developing some special spell, or something—it would have taken longer and required the elevators be maintained only by specialist masons. The sigils they use now mean any properly-trained mason can fix them, so it frees up the specialists for where they’re really needed. And for a while there, we were having horrible congestions in traffic around the elevators, because it meant people had to transfer on and off at each level to take a different one. The circles circumvent that.”

“So when you said that your architect was ‘in on things from the beginning’, you really mean she was making it up as she went.”

Erskine smiled wryly. “I’m saying that the original plans didn’t quite work out as we’d initially planned in a lot of ways, but Ariadne is more than good enough to adapt accordingly.”

They walked past the banks of elevators to the circle-shaped courtyard in the centre, complete with aesthetically-pleasing shrubbery. When Dexter looked up, he saw a skylight far away at the height of the tower, and that the hole was filled with windows. To either side of the walkway were stairs leading down, and in either wall was an elevator door.

“Left goes to the hospital,” Erskine explained, leading Dexter to the right. “Right goes to the precinct. Technically they have a presence in each of the districts, but those are more of an off-shoot of their local government arms. This is where the Tír’s law-enforcement really happens.”

The stairs were well-lit and broad, and suitable for lots of traffic. The idle chatter of the Deck’s patrons trailed down after them as they moved into a reception area. It wasn’t exactly airy, being in the middle of a tower, but it was spacious and bright, and when Dexter glanced behind him he was startled by an apparent window onto a meadow beside the stairs. Then he realised it must be a sigil-created image. Erskine hadn’t been kidding when he said they relied on them a lot.

Dexter turned back around to follow Erskine when one of the elevators to the side chimed and its doors opened. Its passenger exited, and Dexter stopped short and blurted, “ _Corrival_?”


	10. The Old Guard

Corrival turned and saw them, and said with surprise, “Vex?”

“What are you doing here?” Dexter demanded, moving across the lobby toward him.

“Could say the same about you,” said Corrival, and nodded at Erskine, who was right behind Dex. “Ravel.”

“Your timing could use work, Corrival,” said Erskine with a sad shake of his head. “I was just getting Vex back on track, and you had to come in and ruin it.”

“That was your timing, not mine,” said Corrival.

“What _is_ he doing here?” Dexter demanded, but to Erskine this time.

“Jealous, Vex?” Corrival asked gruffly, without a single indication except the faint gleam in his eyes to indicate he was joking.

“Completely. No, really, why?”

“He’s actually here for the same reason you are,” said Erskine. “The Diablerie.”

“The Diablerie?” Corrival echoed. “What about the Diablerie?”

“They’re made a comeback,” Dexter explained. “They’re murdering Teleporters. Erskine agreed to help me hide Peregrine here. He’s the only one left.” Except for a young man whose name Dexter wasn’t sure he should advertise.

Corrival frowned. “You’re here about the Old Guard, then.”

“I don’t know. You tell me.”

“I think we should take this conversation to the case-agent’s office first,” Erskine cut in, and past his shoulder, Dexter saw the receptionist and the people in the lobby whispering and looking. Not all of them wore uniforms. They were definitely drawing attention—not that it was difficult, given Corrival was wearing his horrible patchwork coat. It still felt odd. The last time any of the Dead Men had drawn this much attention just by existing, it had been war-time and they’d usually been stuck in a camp somewhere.

“Was just on my way there,” said Corrival, turning toward the bull-pen behind the glass partition.

“How long has he known?” Dexter asked in a low voice as he and Erskine followed.

“Six months,” Erskine whispered, “so don’t get your back up all over again, I didn’t tell him and not any of you for no reason.”

Right after Clearwater, then. Dexter could accept that. “Why?”

“I can hear you both whispering, you know,” Corrival said without turning, and Dexter had to grin. Even in a place he’d only known for six months, Corrival strode through the bull-pen like he’d been part of its creation. A number of the officers at their desks even greeted him with waves and hellos. He was good at that. Good at making friends even when he had come to the party late. “Go on then, Ravel. Better the bull-pen than the lobby.”

“The Old Guard,” said Erskine, as if Corrival were still his general and they were at a debriefing—aside from the fact that Erskine’s name spoken out loud made more people look up than before. But these were all officers of the law. A lot of them seemed to be familiar with Erskine at least on sight, because they didn’t do much more than go back to work (while trying to watch out of the corner of their eyes, of course). “The best description is that they’re a bunch of passive extremists. Sorcerers, all of them, who prefer ‘the old ways’ where they could feel superior instead of being equal to mortals.”

“But?” Dexter prompted.

“But they’re a bunch of lazy buggers with fewer balls than a ewe,” said a new voice from a desk on the end. The chair rocked back and the woman in it looked at them from upside-down. At least, Dexter assumed she did. She was wearing sunglasses, the sort that were almost a visor. “Mornin’, Corr-o. Who’s the new bloke?”

“More like an old bloke,” said Corrival, taking the chair on the other side of the desk and dropping his coat over the back of it. “Vex, Detective Bonza Digger. Digger, this is Dexter Vex.”

Bonza Digger straightened up and spun the chair to face them. She was broad-faced, with skin somewhere between dark and light, and her long legs were propped up on her desk. She’d have looked scrawny, if it weren’t for the clear muscle in her limbs. “G’day,” she said. “Call me Digger.”

“Digg _er_ or Digg _a_?” Dexter asked teasingly. Her accent was fairly pronounced.

Digger laughed. “Whatever makes you hot at night, mate. You wanna know about the Old Guard?”

“It would be nice to know why I’ve been dragged down here. You said they’re cowards?”

“May as well be,” said Digger. “They spend a lot of time yabbering, not much putting out. The Tír’s system works for ’em just like it does for everyone else, and if they make too much of a ruckus they know they’re gonna be up shit-creek without a paddle.”

“Up until recently, all they did was whine,” Erskine explained. “The precinct didn’t need to do anything other than keep an eye on them. Then, about a year ago, they started getting more secretive and more efficient.”

“Started meeting more often too,” said Digger. “And recruiting. Found one of their nests and saw people we hadn’t been eyeing off. Like this bloke.” She reached behind her for a file on the desk. It was an interesting desk. There was a small boomerang on a stand, which Dexter suspected was not ornamental, and a stuffed platypus behind it. There was also an open box of string and lacquered beads, and what looked like it might be mother-of-pearl. Digger liked making things while she read about her cases, apparently.

Dexter took the file and opened it, and looked down at the pictures inside. The man in the photo was middle-aged and blond. “What about him?”

“For one thing, he’s mortal,” said Digger.

“He is?” Dexter frowned. “How can you tell?”

“Birth certificate, and he looks his age.” Digger shrugged. “Not hard.”

“He could be a sorcerer who doesn’t use his magic.”

“Doesn’t have it, doesn’t use it, makes no difference,” Digger said bluntly. “He’s mortal. The Old Guard thinks magic is the bee’s knees. If he chooses not to use it, he’s no true-blue faery.”

“She’s right,” said Erskine. “The Old Guard are a lot like the Diablerie in policy, just not motivation. They’d never accept someone who can’t or doesn’t use magic.” Dexter didn’t answer. He was too busy grinning. When Erskine finally glanced over to see why, he frowned. “What?”

“The local name for sorcerers is ‘faery’?” Dexter asked, and Erskine’s expression soured.

“Don’t go there, Dex.”

“I wonder who could possibly be at fault for that.”

“If you don’t shut it, Dex—”

“I mean, it couldn’t possibly be because the city’s founder has the face of a faery, or anything.”

“—I’m going to hit something you don’t want hit.”

“It couldn’t be because he’s a pretty faery-prince.”

“That does it.” Erskine took a step forward. Corrival blocked him with his leg.

“Ravel, stand down,” he ordered. “Vex, stop taunting the faery.”

“But it’s so much fun,” Dexter whined, still grinning.

“How you ratbags got anything done during the war I don’t know,” Digger said with a shake of her head.

“Our charm and good looks,” said Dexter, closing the file and gazing down at it thoughtfully.

“Cogs turning over, Vex?” Corrival asked dryly.

“Slowly,” said Dexter, “but surely.” Either the shocks of the morning were wearing off, or his brain was just getting used to them. It didn’t matter. Certain thoughts were connecting. “You brought Corrival in to help find the Old Guard, didn’t you?”

“A number of the Old Guard are original members of the Tír who never believed or wanted it to work the way I planned it to,” Erskine admitted. “That means a lot of them used to be residents of Roarhaven, or Children of the Spider, airing old prejudices in an annoying but harmless manner. I can’t ask them to investigate themselves. I can’t ask them to test their bonds like that. It would cause a rift among the oldest inhabitants of the city. And I refuse to lead any investigation as important as this one. I don’t want the city to rely on me.”

“So he brought me in as a consultant,” Corrival said. “I’m objective, and I’m more familiar with anyone who might be in the Old Guard than anyone in the precinct. Like Ravel said, they’ve got a lot of similarities with the Diablerie.”

“More than you think.” Dexter looked up from the file. “Corrival, Cameron Light is dead.”

Corrival stiffened, and his face tightened. “That’s … a pity. How? He’s a Teleporter.”

“For one thing, Remus Crux is an idiot,” said Dexter. “For another, either Light’s assassin was a sorcerer posing as a mortal representative of the local council, which indicates a level of familiarity with the mortal world to which the Diablerie would never ordinarily stoop, or—”

“Or he was mortal himself,” Digger finished, dropping her head back against the headrest and swinging on her chair as much as her legs on the desk allowed. “Bloody hell, something here’s gone cock-eyed.”

“But why?” Corrival wondered out loud. “The Old Guard’s been here for nearly a hundred years, and the Diablerie was disbanded for even longer before someone brought them back together. How could there _be_ a connection?”

Dexter looked at Erskine. Erskine met his gaze. “There’s one link,” Erskine said very quietly. “The Diablerie are murdering Teleporters.”

“And a few months ago you took in a young, untrained natural,” Dexter said.

“Fletcher Renn?” Digger demanded. “That bloody pom? You think this is about him?”

“If Peregrine had died, the only Teleporter in the world would have been Fletcher Renn,” Dexter pointed out.

“So?” Digger said with a shrug. “So what’s so special about Renn? Sure, he’s natural-born, but the other blokes have more training and more control.”

“Maybe that’s it,” said Corrival. “He’s more easily influenced. The others have too much experience to fall into … whatever trap they’re trying to set.”

“But Renn’s not talking to anybody,” Erskine said.

“Nobody but his case-worker,” said Digger, and they all went quiet. Then Erskine leaned against Digger’s desk and raised his hand, and the air around them thickened until their voices were too distorted for words to make it through to the officers around them.

“Oy,” Digger grumbled.

“You admitted you don’t know who’s in the Old Guard now,” said Erskine grimly. “I don’t think we can afford to keep talking about this in a crowded bull-pen. Who found and sponsored Fletcher’s immigration into the city? You still keep records of that, don’t you?”

“Over in immigration they do,” said Digger. “I’d have to ask.” She made a face. “Just what I wanted; to talk to a buncha pollies.”

“I have every faith in your ability to get around the bureaucrats,” Dexter told her. “Erskine, I need to get up to the hospital. I know you said Madam Mist has a guard on Peregrine, but if the Old Guard was founded by Children and they’re partnering with the Diablerie, I can’t take the risk someone might be able to talk their way in based on familial ties. The man leading the Diablerie now, Batu, has proven himself too cunning.”

Erskine hesitated. “Alright,” he said reluctantly. “I’ll talk to Mist. She’s _not_ one of the Old Guard. I can vouch for that. And I’ll talk to the governor about a protective detail.”

“In the meantime, we’d better figure out how to talk Renn back to reason,” said Corrival. “If his case-worker’s a member of the Old Guard, they’re probably filling his head with all kinds of nonsense.”

“I have an idea about that too,” Dexter admitted. “Who’s tried to talk to him so far? Officers of the law? Teachers? Other case-workers? Adult refugees?”

“About that, yeah,” Digger agreed.

“Anyone his age, who’d be able to relate to him about suddenly discovering magic and-or whatever trauma made him start running so hard?”

Digger frowned. “Actually, no. Not like we’ve got anyone in the precinct even close to seventeen.”

Dexter smiled. “I do.”

“Valkyrie?” Erskine asked with a slow smile.

“Valkyrie.”


	11. The sorcerers' club

Valkyrie had never had a friend in school before. There had been girls she occasionally sat with and boys she occasionally swam or did sports with, and every now and then they had played outside of school. But on the whole, there had never been anyone she _wanted_ to sit with, or _wanted_ to talk to, or even really thought could help with her homework. She hadn’t minded, of course. Her peers at Haggard had been small-minded people.

So it was a very strange feeling to go to school and find herself actively looking around for a specific person.

“If she’s gone and made herself unnoticeable again I’ll have words,” Valkyrie grumbled. Gail was pale enough. Valkyrie was seriously wondering whether that was her natural colouring or not, especially after seeing Macha’s olive-toned skin. _Could_ someone vanish themselves by accident if they willed themselves invisible long enough?

Valkyrie made a mental note to ask one of the Dead Men and then made her way unenthusiastically toward the doors. Somehow, the idea of going to class and wishing she was practicing magic without someone to sympathise was even more of a chore than it had been yesterday.

“Valkyrie!”

Gail appeared so suddenly at her side that Valkyrie looked at her suspiciously. “Were you using your vanishing trick?”

Gail’s cheeks were already flushed with excitement, but now that flush deepened. “No. Of course not. You know those bullies yesterday?”

She was lying. She was a terrible liar, so terrible Valkyrie was actually sort-of amused, and let her change the subject. “Sure.”

“The principal wants to see them and their parents in his office this morning. And there’s a rumour going around that anyone who wants to make an anonymous report can put it in the box at the front desk.”

“What box at the front desk?”

“The one that wasn’t there yesterday.” Gail was grinning. “Isn’t it great?”

Valkyrie hesitated, torn between feeling pleased and feeling older than her new friend in much the same way, she suspected, that Gail had felt yesterday. “It’s been less than a day, Gail,” she said finally, as gently as she could. “If a bunch of other students make reports too, then it’ll mean something, but right now all we have is mine, and I didn’t even lose something.”

“They assaulted you,” Gail pointed out. “That _does_ mean something, even if they didn’t get very far with it. And they don’t just have your report. They have mine too. I gave it to the secretary this morning. I didn’t even make it anonymous.”

Valkyrie shook her head and laughed. “Oh, fine. We’ll see what happens. How do you know about all this, anyway? School hasn’t even started.”

“Um.” The colour had started to fade from Gail’s face, but now it came back. “I just … happened to overhear some things.”

“You were using your vanishing trick to eavesdrop,” said Valkyrie, but she was grinning. “Rover would be so proud of you.”

Gail squeaked and blushed harder, and Valkyrie laughed, and they both joined the throng of students heading in-doors.

As it turned out, something _did_ happen. Valkyrie was called out of class in second period, which she didn’t mind because it was math and Gail was in a different class. When she got to the front desk she saw her mother there. That wasn’t too much of a surprise. Valkyrie had told her parents the night before how well her martial-arts training was coming along. In return, they’d told her they had decided to spend their anniversary in Paris. It had been a good evening.

Mum hugged her and whispered, “I thought I’d handle this a little better than your father, and he needed to go handle something at Gordon’s estate.”

“I don’t know, Dad would probably confuse them into giving in,” Valkyrie whispered back. “What happened at Gordon’s?”

“The police think it was just some kids fooling around and breaking some windows,” said Mum, “and were scared off by the alarm. Des called to say nothing was taken, but he’s arranging for someone to come and fix the windows.”

“Idiots,” Valkyrie grumbled, not feeling very inclined to be lenient on stupid kids, and then the secretary called them into the principal’s office. The three boys who had tried to mug her were in there, along with one or both of their parents, and when Valkyrie sat down she tried to look as innocent as possible.

It wasn’t, in the end, a very long meeting. Not-Good-Looking’s mother was the most annoying, at least at first. She kept insisting her perfect little boy wasn’t capable of violence or theft. Valkyrie wanted to tell her that was partly true, because he was the one who’d been least willing to attack her even though he had tried to help steal her money, but when she opened her mouth Mum had shot her a warning look and she closed it.

Blondie’s father didn’t say anything. He just gave his son the evil eye the whole way through. He looked like the rough sort, with a scruffy beard and dirty jeans and hands stained from working. Blondie sat slouched beside him, looking irritable and sulky, and didn’t even try to defend himself. Valkyrie would have felt a little sorry for him, if he hadn’t been the one who had picked a fight.

Both Reedy’s parents were there. His mother just kept nodding and saying things like ‘uh huh’ and ‘of course’. By the time the principal was explaining that the school didn’t condone this sort of behaviour, and they had enough reports from various students to enforce a suspension at the least, Valkyrie was wondering what the problem had been. There had to be something. Otherwise the students wouldn’t have considered the situation a lost cause.

Then Reedy’s father said, “And what about that little girl’s punishment?”

There was a pause. Then Valkyrie’s mother said quietly, “What gives you the idea that Stephanie needs to be punished?”

Reedy Senior raised an eyebrow at her in a motion that made him look like a much more competent version of Remus Crux. “She’s obviously a violent individual. She caused injury to all three boys.”

Valkyrie opened her mouth and then shut it again before anyone could tell her not to talk, and took a deep breath. _There are times,_ she reminded herself, _when being young and being smart aren’t a good mix and don’t make the situation better._

She couldn’t remember which Dead Man had told her that. Maybe it had been all of them.

“Do you usually consider people violent when they act in self-defence, Mister Barnes?” Valkyrie’s mother asked in that very calm tone which sounded reasonable. Valkyrie knew it really hid a lot of anger.

“Our sons are the ones who are injured,” he said. “Where there’s smoke, there’s fire.”

Valkyrie’s mother nodded. “I see. So my daughter should have let herself to be beaten up, and her money stolen, and _then_ come to the principal, is that what you’re saying?”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” he snapped. “But she obviously provoked them in some way.”

“How?” Valkyrie’s mother asked simply.

“Possibly she was goading them.”

“And you consider attacking a young woman to be an appropriate response to some insults, Mister Barnes?”

Mister Barnes looked at her very coldly. “Our son has been victimised by your daughter,” he said, “and rest assured we will bring appropriate action against you _and_ the school for allowing her to run around assaulting people without due punishment.”

Oh. So _that_ was why the students never said anything. Valkyrie, with very great effort, managed not to laugh. She may have been a big fish in a small pond, and then a medium-sized fish in a big pond, but Mister Barnes was a small fish in a big pond who thought the pond belonged to him.

She found it easier to control herself when she looked at the principal and saw him sigh and rub his face, and wondered how many times this man had bullied them into letting his son off the hook. Well, not anymore.

Her mother, sitting up very straight, looking at Mister Barnes in the eye and said, “If you feel that is the only action you have to take, Mister Barnes, go right ahead. My brother-in-law, Gordon Edgley, introduced me to some excellent lawyers before he died.”

Mister Barnes hesitated. Blondie’s father actually looked vaguely impressed. So did Not-Good-Looking.

“You’re Gordon Edgley’s niece?” he asked Valkyrie uncertainly. “The writer, Gordon Edgley?”

“Yep,” she said with her best smile. “He introduced me to my martial-arts tutors. They’re ex-special-forces. He met them while researching for some of his books. They’ve been teaching me a lot about appropriate use of force and resources.”

She said it blandly, just like Erskine would have.

“Mister Barnes,” said the principal, “would you care to reconsider your decision?”

Mister Barnes straightened and opened his mouth.

“For God’s sake admit your boy’s a bully with only two brain cells to rub together and be done with it,” Blondie’s father growled. “ _You_ might have the money to throw around like a golden tosspot, but some of us are working men who don’t want their sons to grow up thinking they get drift through life on the backs of everyone else.”

“My son would hardly be in this position if yours weren’t the negative influence he is,” Mister Barnes snapped.

“And you making sure both our sons never have to face real consequences for what they do means mine’s turning into an entitled bum with a trigger-happy fist,” Blondie’s father shot back. “I can’t discipline my kid properly when his friend’s daddy goes around proving that using threats _works_. Lay off or _I’m_ the one who’ll call you out back, and believe me, I won’t be as gentle as the lady was on your little angel.”

He got to his feet and the whole couch groaned. “We’re going home,” he told Blondie, “and you can spend your suspension in the shop where the real men work. No son of mine’s gonna be a pantywaist who uses _money_ to clear the road for him.”

Sullenly Blondie got to his feet and followed his father out, and there was a moment of silence. The principal looked at Mister Barnes. Valkyrie’s mother looked at Mister Barnes. Everyone looked at Mister Barnes.

Mister Barnes sat there, face red with embarrassment and anger. “At this time,” he said through gritted teeth, “I believe my son would do better in another school. Good day.”

The three of them left. Reedy tried to glance over his shoulder, but his father hustled him out before he had a chance.

“I think that went well,” Valkyrie’s mother said brightly, and Valkyrie laughed.

 

By lunch-time it had gone around the school that two of the boys had been suspended and Barnes had been expelled. It wasn’t exactly accurate, but Valkyrie didn’t bother to explain the difference. She was new, just into highschool, but now she had groups of random students coming up to ask what had happened, or whispering about her in clusters.

“They’ll stop,” Gail assured her sanguinely. “It’s just today’s gossip.”

Valkyrie didn’t like it. Not one bit. She thought she would have enjoyed being talked about and having a reputation, but she didn’t like the little whispers or glances or the way people shut up when she got close. It didn’t make her feel special. It just made her feel like a dancing bear.

Either way, she was very glad when school finished. She didn’t have any training scheduled for today, so she was just planning to go to the Sanctuary, but Gail stopped her before she could leave.

“Didn’t you want to come to the club meeting?” she asked, a little nervously.

Valkyrie lit up. It had been drizzling all day and it looked like it was going to rain more. She hadn’t been looking forward to getting on and off the bus with rainclouds looming over her head. “Yeah! Let me just text Mum so she knows I’m staying back.”

That took two minutes, and then Valkyrie jogged after Gail down the hallways. Her stomach flipped uncertainly. She wasn’t sure why. She’d met sorcerers much older than her who didn’t like her, and she could handle them just fine. Why would meeting a bunch of sorcerers her own age make her nervous?

“Hey, Gail?” she asked. “Can you not … tell the others I’m an apprentice?”

“Why not?” Gail looked startled.

Valkyrie shrugged and smiled weakly. “Just don’t think I want to be stared at any more today.”

“Alright,” Gail agreed, and stopped in front of one of the library’s study rooms, smiling at her bravely. “We’re here. This is our usual club-room.” She was nervous too, Valkyrie realised with a jolt, and that somehow made her feel worse. Gail went in, and Valkyrie followed, taking deep, slow breaths. There were six others in the room. They all looked up when Gail opened the door.

“It’s about time,” said the one lounging in the beanbag. He was the oldest of those present, with sandy hair and a face that would have been handsome except for his acne problem. He was either in his final year, or second-to-last. Probably the leader, or president, or whatever they called the person in charge of the club.

“I had to ask Mrs Lachlan a question,” said Gail.

“Is that the new girl?” someone else asked, peering around Gail. Valkyrie had to wonder where the ‘new girl’ title came from. People had been calling her that all day, if they didn’t know her name to start with. Her whole _grade_ was new. Gail was new—just, apparently, more knowledgeable about the school’s extracurricular activities. So why did Valkyrie get lumped with it?

“Yep.” Gail stepped away, and then all at once Valkyrie felt as if she was standing in a spotlight. She could see everyone properly, and they could easily stare back. There was the senior. There were two girls sitting at the desk who looked a year or so older than Valkyrie and Gail. There was another boy the same age as the girls who was sitting _on_ the desk, and a third who looked even younger than Valkyrie and Gail on a chair by him. The last was a little girl _definitely_ too young to be a student, who was seated on the floor by the beanbag.

“This is Valkyrie Cain,” Gail said with a note in her voice that sounded a lot like pride. She probably didn’t mean it, Valkyrie told herself, but it still made her feel like she was something Gail was just showing off. She didn’t like that either. If she was going to show off, it was because of something she _did_ , not because of someone she _was_.

“Valkyrie?” asked one of the girls, leaning on the desk. She was the blond, and pretty, with curly hair and long lashes that actually made Valkyrie a little jealous. “You’ve got a name?”

“For a couple of years now,” Valkyrie said stiffly, and then took a deep breath and exhaled slowly, and forced herself to relax. “Well, eighteen months, really.”

“How old are you?” demanded the youngest-looking boy. He couldn’t be old enough to be a student in the college either, Valkyrie was certain.

“Fourteen,” she said with a shrug.

“What’s your magic?” asked the older boy who wasn’t the senior. He wore glasses, but had scruffy jeans and hair which, judging by the way it poked out under his backwards baseball cap, probably wasn’t well-kept either. He looked like a street-kid someone had forced into wearing spectacles.

Valkyrie made herself smile. “This is feeling like an interrogation. Tell you what, why don’t I sit down and you can tell me who each of you are, and maybe I’ll answer a few questions, and then you guys can go on and do what you normally do while I watch and try to get the hang of things?”

“Over here.” Gail found a couple of chairs and Valkyrie dropped her bag beside one, and sat, crossing her legs and trying not to cross her arms too. She was trying _not_ to look like a petulant teenager.

“I’m an Elemental,” she said to the boy who had asked. “What’s your name?”

“Ifrit,” he said at once. “I’m an Elemental too.”

 Valkyrie blinked. “I thought Gail said none of you had chosen your names yet?”

“We haven’t,” said the senior in that bored voice older teenagers used when they wanted to sound cool. “He picks a new one every week, but he can’t settle.”

“This is the one,” Ifrit insisted. “I’m sure this time.”

“You said that _last_ time,” said the other girl, the brunette with her foot on her second chair. She was either looking for stray hairs or stretching. Or possibly both. Valkyrie honestly wasn’t sure. “I’m Natalie. Hi.” She waggled her fingers at Valkyrie.

“Kara,” said the blonde girl. “How did you choose your name? Like, how did you figure out that was it?”

“I don’t know, I just kind of let it swim in my head for a while,” Valkyrie admitted, “and paid attention to things people said about me, and decided what was important enough that I wanted it to be mine.”

“See, that’s what I did,” insisted Ifrit, and in spite of herself Valkyrie had to grin at him.

“So you really like fire then, huh?”

“Huh?” He looked blank.

“An Ifrit is an Arabic fire-creature,” Valkyrie explained. “I read about them in a book one of my tutors gave me.”

“About fire-things?”

“No, it was about the various ways m—non-magical people have viewed sorcerers in other countries and right through history. In Arabia, Elementals who used fire a lot were thought to be fire-demons.”

“Cool.” Ifrit grinned.

“Where did you hear the word if you didn’t know what it meant?” Valkyrie asked.

“In a video game,” said Ifrit. “I just thought it was something the programmers made up. But it’s a real thing?”

“Well, it’s a thing non-magical people thought was real, yeah.”

“Double cool.” He kicked his feet, glancing at the senior. “See, I told you it suited me.”

“What should I call you, then?” Valkyrie asked the youngest boy. He was either glaring at her or thinking really, really hard.

He lifted his chin. “Master.”

Valkyrie had to lift an eyebrow. “Really.”

“My mother’s a clanswoman.”

“I’m happy for her.”

“Everyone around the house calls me Master.”

“Do they?”

“I’m a prodigy. I’ve skipped grades and I’ll be coming here next year even though I’m only eleven.”

“That’s nice.” He was too young. She knew it. He must have been dropped off personally for club-time. Sort-of like a play-date, but without his parents having to actually watch him.

“Most sorcerers only take their names when they come of age.”

“I’ve heard that.”

“Henry,” said Natalie without looking up from squinting down at her knee, “shut up.”

“If we were at home you wouldn’t be able to say that to me,” Henry grumbled, but he obeyed.

“What about you?” Valkyrie turned her attention on the senior and the little girl.

“We just call her Miss, or Missy,” said the senior.

“Nice to meet you, Missy,” she said, and then returned her attention to the senior. He was still looking at her. It wasn’t exactly a stare. It was more like regard. Either way, Valkyrie could tell that he either didn’t like her, or he was judging how much of a threat she’d be. She had a taken name and he didn’t. That meant she had something he didn’t. Sorcerers judged maturity by name-taking and Surges. She didn’t think that was fair, but she could understand why they did it. It wasn’t any worse than choosing random ages to become full adults.

All of which meant that Valkyrie could either suffer through him being suspicious, or cut it off at the chase.

_“When people talk about using offence as a good defence, they usually mean violence. The meaning has become twisted. What it originally meant was to strike first but non-violently. If you can allay fears and prevent a neutral party from becoming an enemy, then your offence has acted as a defence without a single injury.”_

Anton had told her that. It was strange advice for a man whose magic revolved around summoning a manifestation of pure rage, but it had made sense when coupled with Saracen’s ‘be honest’ policy.

“Look,” she said, “I get that you’re seeing me as a threat to your authority in the club right now. I have a taken name and you don’t, so by magical standards I’m sort-of of age and you aren’t. But I don’t care about being in charge of anything. I’m here because I don’t know any sorcerers my age, and I want to.”

Senior looked startled, and then pleased, and nodded. “Alright.”

“But,” she said, and he frowned. “Don’t take that to mean I’m just going to do what you say because you said it. If I—” She was going to say ‘think something you say is stupid’, and then decided that might not be tactful. “If I don’t agree with you, I’ll say so. And if I think I have a better idea, I’ll say that too. Okay?”

Now he just looked sour, and Valkyrie knew that if she hadn’t added the last bit, he definitely would have tried to boss her around. Now he couldn’t be surprised when she didn’t obey him without thinking. Gail had seemed to have strange ideas about how social hierarchies related to magic. Maybe they all did. Maybe they just assumed anyone older and with better magic led.

Except that then Senior glanced down at Missy, and even though he didn’t look happy, he didn’t seem willing to argue. Instead he just said shortly, “Fine.”

“So what do I call you, then? Unless you want me to call you ‘Senior’.”

Kara giggled. Senior didn’t glare, but almost, and suddenly Valkyrie wondered if he was putting on a front for more than just the other kids. “Farley,” he said. “Call me Farley.”

Valkyrie didn’t think that was his given name, but it obviously wasn’t a taken one either. Maybe he was just borrowing it. “Okay.”

“Did you use magic in front of Barnes and the others?” he asked her.

“No,” she said. “But I take martial-arts lessons, so when they tried to force me to give them something I beat them up.”

“They’re such idiots,” Natalie muttered.

“I dunno, I’m glad Kevin didn’t get expelled,” Kara said. “He’s cute.”

“He was the one with the most sense, too,” Valkyrie admitted. “Although that doesn’t really say much. So what kinds of magic do you guys use? All I know is that Gail is the Invisible Woman and Ifrit really, really likes fire.”

She’d been trying to change the subject on purpose, and it worked. Natalie didn’t care all that much about magic. She just wanted to be a dancer. She wasn’t opposed to using magic to get there, though, so she was dabbling in Elemental magic and some Adept discipline which included physical prowess. She’d choose one when she knew which worked better, she explained. Valkyrie didn’t point out that this seemed an awful lot like cheating.

Henry wanted to learn how to use magic to control technology. Specifically, the internet. He said that it was a mortal-magical world and if sorcerers didn’t adapt they’d all get wiped out. Valkyrie was a little worried about the relish with which he added the part about taking control of America’s nuclear missiles.

Kara hadn’t decided on a magic yet, but she’d _tried_ a whole bunch. “Maybe I’ll be an Elemental,” she said gloomily while showing Valkyrie a book of known magical disciplines. “At least then I can use it to get chores done faster.”

 “Be an Energy-Thrower,” said Ifrit. “Then you can blast down walls.”

“I don’t want to blast down walls.”

“Then be a conjurer too. That way you can remake them after.”

“Dexter Vex is an Energy-Thrower who can conjure,” Henry said. Gail, Valkyrie saw out of the corner of her eye, started to go red. “He’s the only person in the whole of history who’s figured out how to combine Energy-Throwing and conjuration. It actually makes a lot of sense, because there’s this mortal thing called transference of energy, and—”

“Shut up, Henry,” said Natalie. She had stopped using the chair as a prop, but she still had her legs stretched out and was rotating her ankles. They weren’t just exercises, apparently. It had to do with sending magic around her body.

“Conjurers exist outside of Energy-Throwing, though,” said Gail. “Kara doesn’t need to learn Energy-Throwing to be a conjurer.”

“They do?” Valkyrie said in surprise.

“Oh, yes. The most famous was Anathem Mire. He built this mansion, see, and he built it on top of tunnels inhabited by awful monsters who ate magic, just so he could throw his enemies down to them.”

“I thought that house was built by Tierney Glory?” Valkyrie asked, trying not to let her expression change. She hadn’t told Gail about Gordon’s house yet.

Gail looked blank. “Who’s Tierney Glory?”

Valkyrie considered answering, couldn’t find an answer that wouldn’t invite more questions, and decided not to after all. “Never mind.” She turned to Missy. So far, Farley had spoken for Missy. Valkyrie hadn’t heard her say a word yet. “What sort of magic do you want to learn, Missy?”

“I want to be an Elemental like my daddy,” said Missy very quietly, drawing shapes on the carpet. It took a moment for Valkyrie to see the little wisps of smoke rising from the tip of her finger.

“Good choice,” she said with a grin. Missy gave her a shy smile which faded quickly, and Valkyrie looked at Farley instead. “And you?”

He shrugged in that way older teenage boys had when they thought they were too cool to give a proper answer. “It’s a secret.”

“He won’t tell any of us either,” Natalie grumbled. “I’ve never even seen him _use_ magic.”

“If I told you, Kara would just try to copy,” said Farley. “I’m doing this for her benefit.”

“Well, you can stop,” said Kara, leafing through her book. “Conjuration sounds kind of cool. I mean, I wouldn’t _need_ anything, I could just make it out of thin air, right?”

“I don’t think—” Gail began, and then stopped and blushed. “Um, I don’t think it works exactly like that. Anathem Mire could create huge things, but from what I remember reading, he had to give something up to make the _really_ complicated things.”

“One of my tutors told me ages ago that all magic comes with a downside,” said Valkyrie, thinking of Maria falling apart because he wasn’t protected against water and Descry always this close to going insane because he could hear everyone else’s thoughts.

“There’s no downside to being an Elemental,” Ifrit boasted.

“There is if you use earth-power.” Now all Valkyrie could think about was Rover, stuck as a statue for ten years.

“I’ll bet I could figure out how to use earth-power. I’d be the first person in history.”

Valkyrie had to grin. Rover would like Ifrit. “Go for it, tiger.”

“I wonder how Dexter Vex does it,” Kara said thoughtfully, and it took Valkyrie a moment to realise she was still talking about conjuring. “I mean, there’s nothing in the book about his having to give up something.”

“He’s in the book?” Valkyrie blinked. Kara turned her book around so she could see the entry on Energy-Throwing. There was even a picture. A drawing, really, but it had really captured Dexter’s charm. And smile. And body. Valkyrie looked away, and tried not to blush. How she could blush over a drawing when she saw the man nearly every day, she didn’t know, but somehow the drawing put it into perspective how handsome he was. It was annoying.

“My mum’s a magical author,” Kara said proudly. “She can dictate words onto paper just by thinking it. She was born right as the war ended, and she decided there wasn’t enough documentation of the magical world’s history and legends and culture. So she wrote it herself.”

“Has she written any books on the Dead Men?” Valkyrie couldn’t help asking.

Kara grinned. “Did she _ever_. She even got to interview Dexter Vex, Saracen Rue and Rover Larrikin. I don’t think she used anything from Larrikin’s transcript in the book, though.” Valkyrie wasn’t surprised. She could only imagine what that interview had been like. Kara turned the book around and sighed at Dexter’s picture. “Conjuration. Why didn’t I think of that before?”

Discussing the merits of that field of magic took up the rest of the club-time. Natalie was all for it. Ifrit still thought Kara should go the Energy-Throwing route. Henry announced that unless she could learn to conjure a magical computer, it wasn’t all _that_ great. Missy didn’t express an opinion, and Farley just made sarcastic remarks whenever someone said something stupid (usually Ifrit).

There was nothing efficient about it. There was no training done. Valkyrie didn’t feel like she’d learned much of anything, even though she made a mental note to ask someone about Anathem Mire and Tierney Glory. Somehow, when she followed after Natalie and Kara as they debated the merits of conjuring, Valkyrie still found herself grinning.

“Hey, Cain,” Natalie said, turning suddenly before the doors. “You’ll be back next week, yeah?”

“Yeah,” Valkyrie agreed. “I don’t think my tutors will mind.”

“Cool. See you then.”

It was raining outside. They all scattered, using coats and umbrellas and running for cover or cars. Gail bid Valkyrie a quick, glowing goodbye and then shot off for the bus trundling around the corner. Valkyrie looked at her phone to see whether anyone had volunteered to pick her up, and her heart skipped a beat when she saw a message from Dexter.

_‘Have a mission for you. Pick you up after your club meeting. Text me when done.’_

A mission. All of her feelings of relaxation evaporated in a rush of excited adrenaline. She had a _mission_. She texted back that the meeting had finished, and then sat by the doors, out of the rain, to wait.


	12. The mission

When Dexter arrived at the school, Valkyrie was damp and grumpier than she had been when she saw his message. She recognised the car as Rover’s orange hybrid, and sighed. She had learned, over the last six months, that Rover had a habit of buying used cars and tinkering with them, and then leaving them for Dexter to finish putting together so they could actually be _used_. The most Rover tended to contribute was ripping out their innards and choosing their colour. And he always chose something bright and offensive.

He’d told her it was just to have an excuse to watch Dexter get all sweaty and greasy while working with his hands. She’d reached an age where she couldn’t really fault him for that. Rover had known that, too, no matter how hard she tried to pretend she wasn’t interested in men. (She still wasn’t interested in _boys_. Boys were immature and stupid and only _thought_ they were cool. Men like the Dead Men were immature, yes, but they weren’t stupid and they really _were_ cool.)

Gritting her teeth, Valkyrie pulled her jacket over her head, wished she could risk using magic in public, and then ran out into the rain. She only realised someone else was in the car with Dex when she got close enough to see their figure in the window, and changed direction to get into the backseat instead of the front.

“I hate the rain,” she grumbled, shaking off her coat. At least it wasn’t the Bentley. Skulduggery would have killed her for getting water all over the seat of his Bentley. Never mind that he was an Elemental and could make it all disappear.

“That’s not the rain’s fault,” said Erskine, and Valkyrie’s head jerked up.

“It’s you!” She lunged forward to try and hug him from the backseat, and with a laugh he waved his hand and made all the water condense into vapour, opened the window a crack, and shunted it all out. Valkyrie sat back again, beaming. If Erskine was here, with Dexter, then that was _wonderful_. “Does this mean you’ve all made up?”

Dexter’s grin faltered. Erskine didn’t look her in the eye. “Well, no,” he admitted. “Just Dex and me.”

“It’s a start. I’ll take it.” Valkyrie flopped back in the seat and put her seatbelt on.  “So what’s this important mission you want me to go on, then?”

She tried to sound business-like. Dexter exchanged a look with Erskine as he pulled away from the curb, and then asked, “What makes you think it’s important?”

She glared at him. “If you sent me that text just because you want me to go back into the Sanctuary’s library, I’m going to set you on fire.”

“I think you’ve all made her even blood-thirstier than she was six months ago,” Erskine said with a shake of his head. “What have you been teaching her while I’ve been gone?”

“What do you expect? Rover had to take over all her Elemental training.”

“Oh, dear. I foresee a lot of bad habits I’m going to have to teach her to break.”

They were teasing her on purpose now, and Valkyrie knew it. She bounced in her seat and leaned forward. “Come on! What’s the mission? It _is_ a real mission, right?”

Erskine still looked amused, but not nearly as amused as he would have if he’d just been teasing. “It’s a real mission,” he said. “You know about Fletcher Renn, right?”

“The second Teleporter? I know about him.”

“I know where he’s hidden right now,” said Erskine.

“That’s brilliant.”

“But he’s not talking to anyone over the age of twenty.”

“Oh.” Valkyrie blinked, and a warm bubble of excitement grew inside her. She pointed out as casually as she could, “I’m not over twenty.”

“Really?” Dexter glanced at her in his rear-view mirror, his eyes crinkled with his grin. “I thought you were older. I mean, you act so grownup all the time …”

She made a face at him. “That’s what you want me to do, isn’t it? Talk to Renn?”

“He’s got good reason not to trust people right now,” said Erskine. “The problem is that we’re fairly sure the only man to whom he does talk is working for the Diablerie. We need to get Fletcher’s trust ourselves. That means sending someone he won’t see as a threat or an authority to talk to him. Someone who knows how to relate to him. That means sending you.”

“You don’t have to make it sound like a death sentence.”

“I like to keep my bases covered.”

“Where are we going, then? Are we going now? Have you spoken to my parents yet?”

“Do you think she’s eager?” Dexter wondered out loud.

“Well?” Valkyrie demanded. “Have you?”

“We spoke to your mother,” Erskine said, his face a little bit blanker than it had been before. Valkyrie wondered if that meant he’d actually gone into the Sanctuary or not. “She wanted to come. I think she was half looking for an excuse not to go to Paris.” He let a trace of amusement seep through. “When I told her I was taking you to the same place as Fergus and his family, she agreed to let us take you alone as long as you visited them and brought back news.”

A year ago, Valkyrie would never have imagined being so happy by that thought. Today, she brightened instantly. “I’m going to see where you took Fergus and Carol?”

“And Beryl,” said Dexter.

Valkyrie made a face, but that was it. She didn’t like Beryl, but she hadn’t seen her in six months, and the last time had been right after Crystal had died. She couldn’t really complain. She didn’t know how her aunt was doing. “And Beryl,” she agreed, just a little reluctantly. “When do we leave?”

“Now,” Erskine said simply. “We’ll stop by your house so you can pack a bag. There’s a time-zone change required.”

“What about school tomorrow?”

“Given the circumstances, we managed to talk Melissa into letting you skip.”

Valkyrie grinned. “Cool.”

“So long as we make it up with some homeschooling,” Erskine added blandly.

“What kind?”

“Oh, I’m sure we’ll come up with something,” Dexter assured her, and Valkyrie laughed.

“Alright. So go home and then go to this mysterious place, have a slumber party, come home when my mission is complete. Right?”

“Something like that,” said Erskine, “with one caveat. The road there is a little dangerous right now.”

“Why?”

“Because there’s a bloke who wants to kill me trying to figure out how to get into the place, and he’s been watching the door.” He was very serious, and not joking at all, and Valkyrie wondered whether he’d even told her mother about this part. “So it’s very important that, if worse comes to worse, you do everything we say without comment. Talking back might be fun, but we promised your mother you’d be safe, and in this situation stopping to talk back might be the difference between keeping that promise and breaking it. Okay?”

“Okay,” said Valkyrie, looking him straight in the eye. The Dead Men didn’t get all serious like this unless it was properly important. Most of the time, they didn’t get all serious like this even when it _was_. But right now, they were warning her there could be a time very soon when she wouldn’t be able to play games, and she appreciated that. That was something she’d always liked about the Dead Men. Even when they were putting her in potential danger, they didn’t treat her like a little kid who shouldn’t know that she _was_ in danger. They hadn’t done it even before the Baron had massacred her family.

“Mum doesn’t know about this, does she?” she asked impulsively.

Erskine and Dexter exchanged glances. “Not … in so many details,” Erskine admitted reluctantly. “She knows we have to be careful because people are trying to find the hiding-place. That’s not untrue. I didn’t tell her the Torment was after me specifically.”

“Okay.” So Mum knew enough to know there was a risk, but not the details. That wasn’t so bad, Valkyrie reasoned. They wouldn’t have asked Valkyrie to talk to this Renn guy unless they had no other options anyway. It wasn’t like they were being reckless for no reason.

It didn’t take long to get to their new house. Valkyrie was still having trouble thinking of it as ‘home’. In some ways, it was nicer than their old house. It was definitely more modern, with all those clean shiny surfaces in the kitchen. It had two storeys, like their last house, which made it seem familiar. But there was no backyard to speak of, and for the few first months Valkyrie had had trouble sleeping because of the constant traffic. Among other things.

There were still a lot of boxes around, and nearly every room was a mess. Valkyrie hadn’t unpacked most of hers either. She’d never realised just how much stuff she had, and a lot of it she barely looked at anymore. It didn’t matter. She didn’t need much. A change of clothes, the clothes Ghastly had made for her, and some night things and toiletries. One or two things she’d found useful for her lessons. Then she slung the bag onto her back and went back downstairs, where Erskine was looking around the house and Dexter was poking in some of the boxes.

“I’m ready,” she said.

“Are you?” Erskine looked her up and down. “I suppose you are. We’d better go, then. It’s going to be evening by the time we get there. You won’t be able to talk to Renn until tomorrow.”

“Why?” Valkyrie asked. “Is he dangerous?”

“No, just hard to find at night. Most of the time we don’t bother.”

“Oh. Okay. Where am I going first, then?”

Erskine smiled. “I’m sure we’ll come up with something.”

 

When Erskine had first said he would take Fergus, Beryl and Carol, Valkyrie had been imagining some kind of hidden house in a city somewhere else. Maybe somewhere in Europe. Then she had assumed they’d have to fly to get there, which she realised couldn’t be true, since Erskine was acting like the place wasn’t all that far away if she could have seen Renn that day. She was even more confused when they took her further inland, but she didn’t say anything until Dexter stopped the car in the middle of nowhere.

“Are we going somewhere invisible?” she asked suspiciously.

Dexter laughed. “Yes. Yes, we are.”

“We just need a bit of help getting there without anyone knowing,” Erskine said as the door opposite Valkyrie opened and a man got into the car out of thin air. Valkyrie jumped and curled her fingers, and then relaxed her hand before she could shove him out using air. Erskine glanced over the seat. “Creyfon.”

Creyfon grunted and eyed Valkyrie. She looked at him back, and lifted her eyebrow. “We need help from a leprechaun?”

Dexter put the car into gear, threw his head back and laughed.

“Keep your bloody eyes on the road,” Creyfon said, scowling. “This is a terrible idea, Ravel.”

“We need Renn on side,” said Erskine. He was grinning too, but turned forward, so his friend couldn’t see it. “If an adult can’t talk some sense into him, maybe someone closer to his age can.”

“She’s a kid.”

“I’m fourteen,” Valkyrie muttered.

“Girls her age were married, back in the day,” Dexter pointed out.

“This isn’t back in the day,” Creyfon grumbled, but he slouched back and put a hand to the ceiling of the car.

“And I’m definitely _not_ getting married,” Valkyrie added with a glare.

Creyfon just grunted in a manner very like Anton, and then magic rushed through them all. It had to be magic. It was warm and tingling, and Valkyrie didn’t want to think about what else it might be. “What was that for?”

“Now we’re invisible too,” said Dexter cheerfully as the horizon turned lumpy with buildings, and he pulled off the road. They drove over a bush. The top of the bush appeared inside the car and Valkyrie jumped, and then a moment later the bush was gone, and she stared at the floor. Every now and then, leaves and twigs came through the floor before vanishing.

“Are we _ghosts_?” she blurted.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” said Dexter.

“He likes pretending he keeps his cool, doesn’t he?” Creyfon asked.

“Pretending being the key word,” Erskine agreed.

“Excuse me,” Dexter grumbled, “I was in the middle of being killed when it happened last time.”

“ _What_ just happened?” Valkyrie demanded.

“We’re in another dimension,” Creyfon told her.

“But the landscape hasn’t changed.”

“Doesn’t have to. There’s more to being in different dimensions than just changing location.”

“It’s the safest way past the people trying to kill me,” Erskine explained. “Creyfon can move people just a little bit to the side of reality, so they can’t be seen, heard or touched. But it only lasts so long.”

“Will a car even fit into that little hole?” Dexter wondered, running straight over a rock that jutted up through the floor and then left in the space of an eye-blink. “It didn’t look too big to me.”

“We used to take carts through there,” said Erskine. “It’ll fit. It just looks small because of the angle.”

“Oh, good.” Dexter changed gears and the wheels crunched. “I thought we couldn’t hit anything?”

“Nothing substantial in the dimension we’re looking at,” said Creyfon. “Doesn’t mean there isn’t anything substantial in the one we’re inhabiting.”

Valkyrie stared at him. The car slowed dramatically, and Dexter glanced in the rear-view mirror, looking a little pale. “ _Now_ you choose to tell me this? Now?”

Erskine laughed. “There’s nothing but flat plains and lake all around Roarhaven in the dimension we’re using as our cover. You won’t hit anything except maybe a large rock.”

“Or one of those six-legged cows,” said Creyfon.

“You’ve seen six-legged cows?” Valkyrie blurted.

“I’m not sure they can be called cows,” Erskine said musingly. “I saw one munching on those orange bunnies.”

“It’s a cow. Only a cow would be stupid enough to eat something poisonous.”

“Yes, but cows don’t eat meat to begin with and it obviously knew something we didn’t, because it didn’t keel over afterward.”

Valkyrie knew her eyes were wide. She didn’t care. “You’ve seen six-legged cows and poisonous bunnies?”

“It was about then that we realised we’d probably be safer staying in our own dimension and just borrowing that one every now and then,” Erskine admitted. “It was Earth, it was just … Earth without any influence from people. The things that evolved weren’t dissimilar in some ways, and then …”

“And then you noticed their six legs and remembered that only something poisonous would have bright orange fur,” said Creyfon flatly.

“But we did bring one of the dead cows back for research about a decade ago,” said Erskine, “since they can apparently digest poisonous things without batting an eyelash. It’s still under study. Or, well, its stomachs are.”

“Told you they were cows,” Creyfon grumbled.

“Why were you going into another dimension to begin with?” Valkyrie demanded.

“Some of us needed a place to hide after the war,” Erskine said simply.

“And he wanted to perform an experiment,” Creyfon added.

Valkyrie stared. The only people she’d ever seen banter or finish sentences with a Dead Man like that was … well, another Dead Man. Or Tanith. But Tanith was new to the group, and Creyfon had obviously known Erskine for years. His comment before, about Dex keeping his cool, hadn’t been teasing in a familiar way, either, so he didn’t know Dex. Valkyrie glanced toward Dexter to see how he was taking it, because he hadn’t said anything in a while.

His face was blank as he announced, “Hold on. Let’s test this size theory.”

Valkyrie looked through the windscreen and yelped, and instinctively her arms jerked up to block the boulder rushing toward them. They didn’t hit anything and the area went suddenly dark, and when Valkyrie dared to peek, they were inside a tunnel.

“Pull up about halfway, before the first arch,” said Erskine. Valkyrie lowered her arms, her heart pounding. She thought it was just adrenaline until she felt a weird little snap in her skin, sort-of fun and sort-of painful like being hit by static.

Creyfon must have seen the look on her face, because he said, “Magic fading. Don’t worry about it.”

Valkyrie thought she’d _like_ to worry about it, thank you very much, but since Erskine and Dexter seemed to be okay with it, she didn’t say anything. Dexter pulled the car up to the side of the tunnel. It was a tight fit, if they wanted to fit another car in there, but since they didn’t it worked.

“Why aren’t we driving to the end?” Valkyrie asked, climbing out and pulling her bag with her.

“Petroleum vehicles are illegal where we’re going,” said Erskine, and Valkyrie had to stop.

“Wait. Where in the world are _cars_ illegal?”

“I didn’t say _cars_ were illegal. I just said _petroleum_ vehicles were illegal.”

“So, what, all the cars there are powered by solar energy or something?”

Erskine laughed. “Some of them.”

“I didn’t think anyone had invented solar-powered cars yet that actually worked long-term and weren’t really expensive.”

“They didn’t use sigils to supplement the solar power.”

“The cars here are powered by _sigils_?” Valkyrie jogged to keep up with Erskine. Anything she’d been imagining before wasn’t nearly as cool as that. “Where are we going? Is it a magical town? I thought Roarhaven was the only fully magical town in Ireland, and they turned into a ghost-town ages ago.”

“It’s called the Tír,” Erskine explained. “It’s a haven, like the Midnight Hotel, except that it’s a city. Sorcerers aren’t the only ones who live there. Mortals live there too.”

“So it’s _not_ like Roarhaven.”

“There’s no place like it in the world,” said Erskine, “because no one there is hidden. All the mortals here grew up with magic. The current governor is mortal. But most of the city is powered by magic. That’s why outside cars are banned—it’s less about legality and more about practicality. Besides the fact that we can’t afford to pollute our air like that, it’s just too hard bringing in resources from outside the city. People might find out. We’d never be able to justify the expense. So nearly everything has to be self-contained.”

“Nearly?”

Erskine grinned sheepishly. “The Internet was something of a Godsend. I was getting worried with how insular the younger residents were for a while there. And it meant we could more easily set up transactions using an outside go-between. Nothing needed in excess bulk, like petrol, but smaller things easily lost by the markets, like tapes or DVDs.”

“You don’t need DVDs to watch movies these days.”

“That makes it even easier.”

“How long until we get there?”

“About two seconds,” said Erskine dryly, and the tunnel curved gently and Valkyrie saw the light at the end.


	13. Batu

_“Nice digs,” said Sanguine, looking around. It was a bare room, small and made of stone, with a sloped ceiling. The walls were lit with sigils, and they made the light flow strangely around the room. It was irritating on his eyes. When he spoke, the air turned his voice dull. He was alone. “What am I, special?”_

_“Yes,” said the voice. Sanguine was sure the voice had come from one of the sigils, but he didn’t know which. The sigils weren’t there to contain him. That was all he cared about. He didn’t even care about the person talking to him._

_“Always appreciate bein’ appreciated,” he said. “What d’you want with special, little old me?”_

_“Your talents are also appreciated.”_

_“Which talent might that be? I’ve got a few.”_

_“Anarchy,” said the voice, and Sanguine smiled._

_“My favourite. I’m presumin’ you have a specific place in mind?”_

_“Tír Tairngire,” said the voice. Sanguine was sure it was Batu. Gallow didn’t sound as deep._

_“What, the faery-land?” he asked, and laughed. “My daddy used to tell me stories. No such place, and I ain’t no faery.”_

_“You’re standing in it,” said Batu._

_Sanguine felt his amusement fade. He had spoken to Batu before. He hadn’t always known his name, but he had spoken to him. None of those times had been so secretive. The day before he’d received a package containing a stone, written in sigils, which he’d been ordered to keep on his person. Then he had been told to report to Roarhaven in the middle of the night, and the location of a crack in a rock he would never have found by himself, even tunnelling. He had gone down the passage, and someone had met him, and that someone had led him out into a circular stone room with fire around the walls and then down some stairs into this one, and told him not to say a word or try to leave until after someone contacted him. The only thing he’d heard until Batu had spoken was the sound of footsteps and murmuring outside, but he had snuck a peek and caught a glimpse of two guards._

_Sanguine glanced over his shoulder. He knew the door was there, because he knew stone, but it was almost seamless against the wall. He looked back at the sigil he was most certain was Batu’s speaker. “Prove it.”_

_“Look out the window,” said Batu._

_“What window?”_

_“Look up.”_

_Sanguine looked up and then leapt back, and swore. The whole ceiling suddenly seemed to be made of glass, and above him was nothing but water. Light shone down from the surface and lit the water green and blue. The shape of the lights told him that there were tall buildings on the surface, and the nearest lit a rocky shoreline._

_One of the sigils on the wall hummed. He looked at it just as the wall turned invisible, and then he was looking at buildings underwater. From where was stood he could tell that his room wasn’t even on solid ground. The ground was at least fifty feet lower, sloping slowly up to where it broke the surface several hundred yards away. Most of the buildings were clustered in that area, built into rock or supported by pylons, or hanging from the manufactured ground above. A network of passages criss-crossed the areas between buildings. It was late and not all the lights were on, but a lot of them were, and in the distance, he could even see that a lot of those passages had broad windows._

_When he peered to the side he saw more buildings, not as fancy, and things that looked like underwater paddocks with fish or meadows of seaweed on the ocean’s floor. On the other side there was a massive bank of machines he recognised, after a moment, as some kind of hydraulic wheels._

_“What the bloody hell?” he said, staring._

_“Tír Tairngire,” said Batu, and there was definitely a sneer in his tone. “A city where sorcerers and mortals can live in harmony. A city of fools.”_

_Sanguine’s heart beat faster. “Sorcerers_ and _mortals? What’re you implying? The mortals know about the sorcerers?”_

_“Exactly.”_

_“And they’re not scared of ’em?”_

_“They’ve been indoctrinated to think of themselves as equals.”_

_Sanguine smiled. A city where sorcerers and mortals knew about each other and weren’t tearing each other to bits? It was ridiculous. It was_ perfect _. “And you want me to cause a li’l bit of anarchy, is that it?”_

_“Among other things, Mister Sanguine. Among other things.”_


	14. Avenues of investigation

When Valkyrie woke up in Corrival’s bed, at first she had no idea where she was. She shot upright, glancing around the small room, and then looked across at the faded patchwork coat on the hanger behind the door, and remembered. She shoved the covers aside and jumped out of bed, and went to the window, and gasped.

Last night it had been too dark to see anything but the array of lights and their reflection in the water far below. That had been spectacular, but she had wished she’d been able to see more of the city than just its lights. Now she could, and it was still spectacular. She’d been disappointed the night before when Dexter had insisted Erskine didn’t have enough room in his apartment for all of them, even though she suspected it was because they hadn’t wanted her to see how badly Erskine had been treating himself for the last six months. Not that Corrival hadn’t been a complete gentleman, giving her his bed and all, but she’d have preferred staying in Erskine’s flat.

She wasn’t disappointed anymore. Erskine’s apartment had been on the ground. Corrival’s was up high—not as high as any of the district towers, but in one of the tallest buildings in Éire, and facing Central, which meant that nearly the whole city was sprawled beneath them. They were even higher than the Decks, and the water glittered in the sunlight far below. There were seagulls floating on the breeze below the window, and she saw a hang-glider launch from the top of Éire Tower toward South Africa’s Deck. (Erskine had called the district something else. Manzy, or something.)

It was beautiful. There was no other city like it in the whole world. Not just because of how it looked, but because every single person in it knew about magic, and not even half of them were sorcerers.

Grinning, Valkyrie went to her phone to see what had woken her up, and saw a text from Dexter.

_‘Got some business. Go on to the Edgleys. Will update you later.’_

Valkyrie made a face at her phone but had a quick shower, then got dressed and went out into the main part of the apartment. Corrival had warned her the night before that he’d be leaving early, but he had told her to have whatever she wanted from the kitchen, so she found the bread and made some toast.

The toaster was sigil-powered. It looked like a box with slits in the top and squiggles on the sides, and it took some playing before she figured out how to change the settings (apparently Corrival liked his bread just a little bit crisp rather than actually toasted). It was still cool. Cooler than a toaster had any right to be. It reminded her a lot of China’s flat.

After that Valkyrie left, locking the door behind her with the spare key and shoving it into her pocket. On the inside the apartment building looked like any other apartment building, if she ignored the sigil-lights on the ceiling and the occasional view out the window. The elevator only took her down to Deck-level—all the distances around the city seemed to be measured in two-hundred-foot increments—but Corrival had said there was a Teleportation circle somewhere on this floor.

She found it and peered at the map on the pedestal. It wasn’t raised, which was unusual. It was just a round plinth. When she reached out to touch a sigil, the whole map elevated like a hologram, focussed on the area of the city in which she stood. Her circle lit up, and three or four circles within reach flashed. One was on the ground, so she touched it. The circle hummed and she felt a weight in her feet, and blinked, and then she was no longer two-hundred feet in the air, but down in a courtyard beside the water’s edge.

For a moment Valkyrie felt dizzy, but that had happened last night too. Erskine said it was common among newcomers. She gripped the edge of the plinth and waited it out, and then straightened. Touching the map-symbol again made it rise, and then she hesitated. The lines of the streets were obvious enough that she could figure out where the ferry docked, but the map wasn’t large enough for her to see where her uncle’s flat was. There were other sigils on the bottom, but the first one was the only one she’d seen Erskine use.

“Need a hand, miss?” someone asked from right behind her. Valkyrie jumped and whirled, and saw a girl a few years younger than her with a skateboard.

“I’m looking for a place on the map,” she said with a gesture. “But it’s in Central.”

“Easy,” said the girl, moving forward and prodding the sigil next to the one Valkyrie had used. The map zoomed out. She prodded the next sigil along. “Where’s it at?”

Valkyrie told her the address and a dot on the holographic map blinked. “Oh. Thanks.”

“No problem.” The girl shrugged and continued to look at her. “You’re new here, aren’t you?”

“A little, yeah.” Valkyrie ignored the stare and focussed on memorising the route. It wasn’t too hard. The ferry wasn’t far, and the flat was only a couple of streets inland on Central.

“Where was home?”

“Haggard,” said Valkyrie. “Ireland.”

“Can tell. You have an accent.”

“Probably. Thanks.” Valkyrie turned to leave, already focussed on finding her uncle’s house.

“You _are_ a faery, right?”

Valkyrie stopped and turned with a frown. “A what?”

“A faery,” repeated the girl. “A sorcerer. You are one?”

Warning prickled the back of Valkyrie’s neck. “I was told it didn’t matter around here.”

The girl shrugged. “Maybe not for most people, but Dad says if the city were all faeries they’d have been able to do a lot more with it.”

“‘They’?”

“We’re not,” said the girl.

“Then why does your dad care?”

“’Cos there’s gotta be a reason they don’t let us out of the city. Says maybe it’s ’cos things are better out there. Says the faeries should have their cities and mortals should have ours. Think he wants to be a faery himself.”

Valkyrie looked at the girl again, and more closely. At first glance the scuff on her shoes and jeans, and the untidiness of her hair, suggested she’d been playing in the wind at ground-level. She even had a pair of small binoculars around her neck. But then Valkyrie saw the dirt clinging to the lines of her palm, and the stains on her T-shirt, and the grubbiness of her face. Someone couldn’t get that grubby in the face very quickly unless they’d gone diving into a mud-pile, and the girl’s clothes weren’t dirty enough for that. Besides which, there were suspicious tracks in the dirt, like she’d been crying.

“How long has it been since you’ve gone home?” Valkyrie asked impulsively.

The girl shifted and gripped her skateboard tighter, and her eyes flickered, and her elbow drew in tighter to her side. “Not that long.”

Valkyrie dropped the subject. She didn’t want the girl to start running. “Your dad says a lot of things. Does he do anything with them?”

This time the girl almost looked frightened. “Dunno anything about that.”

Valkyrie took a deep breath. Before she’d gone to bed last night Dexter and Erskine had given her a rundown on the Old Guard and their connection to the Diablerie, and there was something really strange going on here. It was a school day. This girl was old enough to be in school. Why wasn’t she? Why was she lurking around circles? “Why did you ask if I was a s—a faery?”

“No reason,” the girl mumbled.

“Because only faeries should be allowed to live here?”

“I gotta go.”

“Are you hungry?”

The girl stopped in the middle of turning and threw her a confused look. “What?”

“Are you hungry?” Valkyrie asked again, more patiently than she really felt. “I’m going to my uncle’s. He makes great pancakes.”

“You’re asking me to breakfast with your uncle?” The girl’s eyes narrowed. “Why?”

For a moment Valkyrie debated—but only for a moment before deciding that Saracen’s advice about honesty applied here. “Because I know some people who might want your help,” she said bluntly, “and in return they’ll be able to help you.”

“Don’t need help.”

“Your dad hurt your arm when you went back this morning,” Valkyrie said as calmly and logically as she possibly could. It wasn’t nearly as good as Skulduggery could do, but maybe it would be good enough. “Because you walked in on something you weren’t meant to see or hear, and he got angry. He doesn’t usually hurt you, but his work is getting really important lately. So important that he hasn’t noticed you cutting school.”

She would have gone on to guess about the girl’s mother, but the girl’s fear had merged with wide-eyed awe. “Are you a mind-reader?”

Valkyrie thought of Hopeless, and then thought of Saracen, and smiled. “Sometimes I just know things. Look, you don’t have to come with me right now, but if you decide you want to do some business, you can leave a note up at Southside Flat on the twenty-sixth floor.”

An odd look came over the girl’s face. “You came from Southside two-six? The one belonging to the bloke who likes Joseph’s colourful coats?”

“Yes,” said Valkyrie, and frowned. “Why?”

The girl hesitated. “Cos … cos I followed Dad here with that Yank wearing the sunnies. And they left to follow the man with the colourful coat.”

Dread fell into the pit of Valkyrie’s stomach. “The Yank wearing the—what? The sunnies? You mean sunglasses?”

“Yeah.”

“Did your dad call him anything?”

“Called him Mister Sanguine,” said the girl, “and he was laughing about finally getting to have some fun.”

Valkyrie took another deep breath and let it out slowly. Her body tingled with adrenaline and she wanted to do something, but she couldn’t. Not yet. She had to think things through. Suddenly Dexter’s text message seemed a lot more ominous. “The fun has already started, hasn’t it?”

“Yeah.” The girl was watching her with fascination. “Didn’t have nowhere else to go and this square is good for skateboarding. So I stayed.”

Corrival could have left a while ago, then. “Did they say where they were going?”

“No. Is Dad in trouble?”

This time Valkyrie didn’t pause at all. The girl was younger, but if Valkyrie had been in her place she wouldn’t have wanted people to lie to her either. “Yes. The man he’s with is a killer. If he’s been hired, then whoever hired him is going to consider your dad expendable, and he might be killed himself.”

The girl paled, making her freckles and her dirt stand out suddenly, but she stayed upright. “Oh. Thought it might be something like that.”

“But you can help,” said Valkyrie. “You heard things this morning. If you help, we can make sure that your dad will be as safe as he can be.”

“I’m eleven,” said the girl. “You’re not much older. You can’t promise that.”

“I’m apprenticed to a detective,” Valkyrie told her, “and he listens to me, and I can promise that he’ll listen to you, and that he’ll do everything he can to make sure your dad’s safe. But you have to tell me quickly what you heard this morning.”

“That’s the thing,” said the girl after a moment of hesitation. “It didn’t make much sense. They were just talking about birds.”

“Birds?” Valkyrie blinked.

“Yeah,” said the girl. “I like birds. We’re a long way out, but we’ve got some here that usually only nest on land. That’s what they were talking about, a peregrine falcon that got here the other day. Was hoping I’d be able to see it if I followed them.”

She sounded vaguely disappointed beneath the wariness, but fissions of energy ran through Valkyrie. “Peregrine?” she demanded. “You’re sure? They were talking about Peregrine?”

“They wanted to kill it,” said the girl. “Said it’d ruin things if it was here. Remember thinking that Dad’s never been so gung-ho about the Tír’s ecosystem before, but maybe I had ’em all wrong after all, but right after that they threw me out, and—” She stopped and went pale again. “Weren’t talking about birds, were they?”

“No,” said Valkyrie, reaching into her pocket for her phone. The tower here used the same signals as the ones in the rest of the world, but when she looked at the bars, there were none. There was no connection at all. “Right.” Valkyrie pocketed the phone and looked at the girl straight in the eyes. “This is a matter of life and death. I need the fastest way to Central’s tower, right now.”

“Fastest way?” The girl grinned shakily. “That’s easy. But we’ll have to go up.”


	15. Sons of anarchy

When Corrival walked into Central’s precinct, it wasn’t precisely in an uproar so much as orderly chaos. Vex wasn’t anywhere in sight, so Corrival went to Ravel, who was talking quietly with a tall, willowy lady in a business ensemble in the corner.

“Ravel,” he said as he joined them, nodding toward the woman. “Governor.”

“Master Deuce, hello,” she said. The first time Corrival had met the governor it had been at the city’s festival celebrating the city’s creation. She had been busy whirling two children around a dance-floor and laughing madly. Now there wasn’t a trace of amusement, and a very large dose of worry. “I trust you’ve heard?”

“I haven’t,” he admitted, glancing around the precinct. “What’s happened?”

“A man came to my office this morning,” she said. “An American, wearing sunglasses. He told me that he was going to test the Tír’s response system, whether I wanted it or not, and then vanished back into the wall. Master Ravel tells me you’re familiar with this man.”

Corrival blinked. “We are?”

“We are,” said Ravel. “It’s Billy-Ray Sanguine. He’s been working for the Diablerie.”

“Vex’s investigation stirred up a bloody hornet’s nest,” Corrival muttered.

“It’s Dexter,” said Erskine. “What else did you expect?”

“I’d hoped he’d grown up over the years,” said Corrival. “Has Sanguine started yet?”

“He’s sabotaged the communications tower,” said the governor. “I realised when I tried to ring the precinct and couldn’t.”

“Dexter came in early this morning,” Ravel explained. “He went off with Digger to investigate one of the Old Guard’s nests based on a tip late last night. We haven’t been able to contact either of them.”

“Alright,” said Corrival. “So what’s been done so far?” The city, built so closely after war, had several emergency procedures in the event of attacks and a large enough magical population to remember the need to ensure they stayed in practice. He knew about them—most of them—but he’d only been there for six months.

“The postal carriers have been dispatched as emergency couriers to the other districts,” said the governor. “We have someone looking for Master Vex and Detective Digger, and we’re right now organising parties to patrol for other sabotages.”

“Emergency communications?” Corrival asked, and looked at Ravel. “The circles? You said there was a holographic override on the circles during emergencies.” It turned the circles off, which kept invaders from advancing through the city unless they had the right key, and circumvented the need for the communications tower.

Ravel sighed. “We do. The override is working, but not the comm system. We haven’t had to use it at all since it was built, and even though the test-runs went fine, that was forty years ago. There’s a breakdown in the spell somewhere. We’ve sent out for sigil-masons to see if we can find and fix it, but we don’t know yet whether it’s due to upkeep or deliberate sabotage. We’ve got them guarded.”

“How are you contacting the citizens, then?” That had been one of the things that bemused him when Ravel gave him the tour six months ago: the Tír had a strict policy of citizen inclusiveness. When things went wrong, they told the city residents. When laws changed, they asked the residents for their input. Corrival supposed it made sense, given the size of the city and the small demographic which had built it, and the fact that most of that demographic was still alive, but he was hoping it wouldn’t result in a city-wide panic. That was the last thing they needed.

“I’ve left that in the hands of the individual district authorities,” said the governor, and glanced toward the stairs. There was a cluster of people in the corner, near one of the meeting-rooms. “But now that the issue is in the hands of the precinct, I really must address Central. Thank you for your update, Erskine.”

“You’re welcome, Adaeze,” said Ravel with a bow, and the governor left them to meet her media-relations team, a dark-skinned figure making the crowd part effortlessly before her.

“What’s going to happen when she addresses the city?” Corrival asked. “This could go badly wrong, Erskine. The people here aren’t used to crime of this sort, and you can’t very well shut down all the ferries.”

“We’re not going to,” said Erskine, and smiled. “Sanguine’s a burrower, and we’re on water. We had to manufacture most of our foundation, so the seafloor is deeper than it is for other ocean cities. He won’t be able to stand the pressure. We also have too many facilities underwater for him to trust the integrity of the ground he’s in. He’s more likely to move overland, so we can catch him on the ferries. All Adaeze is going to do is let the people know we’re issuing a manhunt.”

“So long as he’s moving,” Corrival muttered. “He’s got people here to conspire with. He could sit in one place and let others more familiar with the city do the handiwork.”

“If that was true, Batu wouldn’t have bothered to bring Sanguine into the city,” said Ravel. “He could have staged an attack without Sanguine. Sanguine’s here to draw our attention. He’s going to be the one heading each attack.”

“There’s another option,” Corrival said quietly. “Morale. The city’s never been attacked like this before.”

“Not like this,” Erskine agreed, “but it’s been attacked. Not all magical newcomers are willing to just live and let live, Corrival. This isn’t our first manhunt.”

Corrival studied his friend. Erskine Ravel, as a young man, had been charming, handsome, and entirely lacking in ambition. Not that he was the only one. It had long been a driving characteristic of the magical community that effecting changes on the world at large would break their secrecy. That meant that any sorcerer with ambition usually had to stifle it or channel it into something other than advancing their community at large. For Erskine, it had simply been a matter of not having a reason to use his talents in particular ways.

Erskine was the sort of man who could change the world. He acted oblivious to that power most of the time, which made it easy to forget that he knew it. That he’d _done_ it. Somehow, that was clearer now than any other time, when they were in the midst of a potential crisis and instead of leading his people, Ravel let them lead themselves. Even though he was still there. Even though he still included himself among their number.

The reason it felt so strange, Corrival realised with a start, was because he had no place in these dynamics. He wasn’t a leader of the city. He could advise, but he couldn’t lead. He was left to go to Erskine. And that felt very, very strange.

He grinned. He could accept that. “What’s your command, then, Master Ravel?”

Erskine’s gaze snapped away from the rush of activity toward him, and he scowled. “Don’t you start.”

Corrival shrugged. “I’m just a consultant. This is your city. The least you could do is direct me to someone who’ll give me orders.”

“Give _you_ orders?” Erskine looked at him sceptically. “Can anyone give _you_ orders? You’re Corrival Deuce.”

“I’m an asset you should use, your highness.”

“Maybe something two letters shorter,” Erskine muttered, and then shook his head. “Alright, fine. As long as the circles can’t be used for communication, we’re going to have one hell of a crossover of information happening. We’ve set aside a room up top for incoming and outgoing couriers, but we’re still going to need someone to coordinate them and our lines of communication. You’re good at yelling, _and_ you like sending people places.”

Corrival snorted and instinctively reached out to cuff him, and then stopped the motion halfway through. Erskine was far from his subordinate anymore. Very, very far. He let his hand drop. “As you say, sir. I’ll be on my way.”

“I’ll let the others know,” said Erskine, looking vaguely discomforted. “And don’t call me sir.” He turned to stride away and stopped and looked over his shoulder. “Seriously. Don’t. Ever. It just sounds _wrong_ coming from you.”

Before Corrival could answer, Erskine had waded into the crowd of people hurrying this way and that through the precinct lobby.

 

The girl’s name turned out to be Peep. Valkyrie would have asked where the nickname came from, but she was too short of breath and the binoculars around the girl’s neck said enough. The Éire Tower was only a block inland, and by the time they arrived there was a cluster of puzzled commuters around the non-functioning circle.

“We should have taken the ferry,” Valkyrie said.

“Ferry would’ve taken half an hour,” said Peep, but she was frowning.

“It’s going to take that long to get up to the top of the tower.”

“Come on.” Peep grabbed her arm and pulled her back along the boulevard. Valkyrie let herself be led, but she had to fight hard against the rising frustration. She heard a voice over a loudspeaker and glanced over her shoulder. What she’d mistaken for a set of solar panels on the side of the tower had turned on like a giant screen, and on it was a woman as beautiful as China Sorrows, looking very serious.

They could still hear the speaker when Peep came to a stop, but it was too far to hear words. Peep put her binoculars to her eyes and scanned the top of the tower, and let out an exclamation of vicious triumph. Valkyrie squinted into the skyline, but at this level she couldn’t see what Peep was looking for.

The girl pawed at her clothes and came out with a mirror, and she tilted it to the sun and the top of the tower. Valkyrie stared at her, and then back up at the tower. “What are you—”

“You shone that right in my _eyes_ ,” someone complained behind them, and Valkyrie jumped and whirled and swung out her fist. The boy behind them blinked out of sight and then appeared a foot away, looking surprised and then looking angry. “Hey! What was that for?”

Valkyrie’s heart was pounding. “You startled me,” she said. “Don’t do that.”

The boy was older than her, a teen—probably about Farley’s age, but with less acne and even stupider hair. He scowled. “It’s not my fault you punch before asking questions. Jeez, wound up tight much?”

“Fletch, this is Valkyrie,” said Peep, and turned to her. “This’s Fletcher Renn. He’s a Teleporter. He can get us where you wanna go real quick.”

Valkyrie was glad of her surprise. It meant she didn’t burst out with the news that she already knew who Fletcher was. That wouldn’t have done any favours. “You know a Teleporter?” she asked. “How?”

Peep shrugged. “Brings me food when I can’t go home cos of Dad’s friends.”

“Hold on a minute.” Fletcher crossed his arms. He was trying to look tough, but Valkyrie could see in the smirk that he’d enjoyed Valkyrie’s reaction. She pushed down the irritation. Maybe it would help soften him up. “Who says I’m going to take you _anywhere_?”

Valkyrie thought fast. Renn wasn’t going to want to take her to the precinct, and even less likely to take the Guard anywhere after they went there. “It’s an emergency,” she said. “All the circles are down and there’s a conspiracy happening inside the city. I need to get to the hospital.”

Fletcher shrugged. “So? Not my problem.”

“Dad’s in on it,” said Peep, looking down at her feet and clutching her skateboard. “Val says the man he’s with is a killer, and he’s plannin’ on killing someone here. After he does, what’ll he do to my dad? Please, Fletch. We’ve just gotta go to the hospital.”

As far as Valkyrie was concerned there was no ‘we’ on this, but she said nothing. Fletcher’s face softened, and he hesitated. “I like your dad. But how do _you_ know this guy he’s with is a killer?” He demanded the last of Valkyrie. “What would you know, anyway?”

Valkyrie took a deep breath to control her temper. “I’m apprenticed to a detective,” she said. “I know the man Peep’s dad is with. He’s a killer for sure.”

She wasn’t sure what she said wrong, but Fletcher’s expression went flat and he pulled back. “Detective? You mean that detective bloke who came in two nights ago? The one who wants to _talk_ to me?”

“How did you know that?” Valkyrie asked slowly. Her mind was working fast. Erskine and Dexter had said Fletcher’s case-worker was probably one of the Old Guard, if not the Diablerie. If they had already tried to convince Fletcher not to help Dexter, she was in trouble.

Renn sneered. “I keep an eye on what’s going on around here, don’t think I don’t.”

Valkyrie looked at him, his skinny body full of towering anger, and resisted the urge to cross her arms back. “I don’t think you do,” she said, trying for calm. Not gentle. She couldn’t do gentle. “See, Sanguine’s part of a group that’s trying to open a portal between our world and one filled with evil gods. If he’s here, that’s bad. And if someone told you that he’s not a bad man, then they’re either bad themselves, or seriously misguided.”

With a heavy sigh, Fletcher rolled his eyes. “Look, you’re young. You don’t know how these things work. It’s a political thing.”

_“Sometimes,”_ Anton had said once, _“a little anger can go a long way. Not often. But sometimes.”_

“It wasn’t a political thing when Sanguine helped murder most of my family,” Valkyrie said coldly, struggling to keep her voice from cracking. It didn’t work. She and her parents never talked about the golf-club massacre. Never. Her eyes burned and she looked away, and took a deep breath. She could feel Peep staring.

“You’re taking the mickey,” said Fletcher, but he sounded less sure now.

“A man called Baron Vengeous used most of my extended relatives in a blood-sacrifice spell six months ago,” Valkyrie said dully. It was the only way she could say it at all. “Only a handful of us even survived. My cousin didn’t. My aunt and uncle and my other cousin all live here now for their own safety. I was meant to see them this morning, and now I can’t even do that.”

She took another deep breath and forced her body to move through the numbing tingle, and looked back at Fletcher. Something in her face made him flinch. “So don’t you dare tell me I don’t know how ‘these things work’. You’re a Teleporter. _You_ can afford to go around avoiding people and spying on them at the same time, and escaping when they start to do bad things. The rest of us can’t. If you were worth anything at all you’d at least be willing to help make it a little easier. But if you’re not, then I’m going to go catch a ferry and do it myself. _You_ can go have fun sulking and letting one person tell you how great you are. The world will go on without you.”

_“Among the hardest things to remember is that the world will go on without you. It cares nothing for your agony. It will, at best, sympathise and then continue. If you cannot keep up, your life will be as nothing. It is a lesson very many, especially today, will not learn. Don’t be one of those people, Valkyrie.”_

Valkyrie turned on her heel and moved toward the dock, blinking rapidly to get rid of the wetness in her eyes. Anton’s words had sounded cruel at the time, but he never said anything just to be mean. She had often wondered what sort of life he led to get to how he was.

_On your feet,_ she told herself, _and don’t stop moving_.

That was something she’d heard Saracen mutter a few times over the last few months. If Renn wasn’t going to help, she’d leave him behind and figure it out without him. Being a coward was his problem, not hers.

Abruptly Valkyrie realised there was someone by her side, and she looked over to find Peep there. “Peep, you should go home.”

“Won’t have no home if Sunnies does anything to my dad,” Peep said flatly. Valkyrie knew she didn’t mean a place to live. The city wouldn’t just throw her out onto the street. That didn’t mean anyplace she went afterward would be home.

Valkyrie didn’t have much to say to that. She didn’t think Peep’s dad sounded like a nice person at all, but he was her dad. That made a big difference.

“Wait,” Renn called, and Valkyrie heard his footsteps on the stone. He sounded grumpy. “Fine, I’ll take you to the hospital.”

Part of Valkyrie was tempted to refuse his help out of principle. She didn’t want the help of someone who acted like it was a big chore. Instead she bit her tongue and stopped, and turned to accept just as he took her arm, and then the next thing she knew she was standing in a hallway. Dizziness swept over her and Valkyrie staggered, and felt his arm around her, and pushed him away in favour of holding onto the wall.

“I was just trying to help,” he protested.

“Next time give me a _warning_ ,” she said through gritted teeth, blinking rapidly until the dizziness faded. She straightened up. “Which part of the hospital are we in?”

Renn was standing with his arms crossed in affront. He said grumpily, “There’s a map over there.”

“We’re just outside the chapel,” said Peep, pointing to the map. “Where’s Peregrine at?”

“I don’t know,” Valkyrie admitted. “He was poisoned, badly, and he’s under guard.”

“He’s probably still in the ICU,” said Renn.

“That’s this way,” said Peep, trotting down the hall.

“How do you know?” Valkyrie asked, following.

“Been here a lot when Mum died,” said Peep without looking around. There wasn’t anything Valkyrie could say to that either, even though she’d figured that Peep’s mum had been out of her life for a long time. “Gonna have to be careful, though. They’d send us out if they find us.”

“Leave that to me,” Renn boasted. “They’ll think they were seeing things.”

“Then why don’t you go ahead and check every room for us?” said Valkyrie.

“Because—” Fletcher slumped a little. “Because I can’t. I can’t Teleport anywhere I haven’t seen. I’ve been into the chapel before. I figured it was one of the last places the Guard would look for me.”

Valkyrie sighed. “I have a better idea. Where’s the nearest nurse’s station?”

“Thought you didn’t wanna get caught?” Peep demanded.

“I don’t have to hide to begin with.” Valkyrie took a folded bit of paper out of her jacket and showed it to her. “This is proof of my apprenticeship to Dexter Vex. I’m allowed into Peregrine’s hospital room. That means I can ask directions and I don’t have to worry about someone trying to stop me.”

Peep looked impressed. “It’s just ’round the corner,” she said. “C’mon.”

When they came around the corner, the attending nurse looked surprised to see them. “What are you all doing back there?” he demanded, rising. “I didn’t see you come through.”

“I’m sorry,” said Valkyrie, “but it’s an emergency.” She showed the nurse the certificate. “I’m Valkyrie Cain, Detective Vex’s apprentice. He has a man named Emmett Peregrine in the ward here. I need to find his room.”

The nurse hesitated. Valkyrie could tell what he was thinking—that Valkyrie looked far too young to be involved in anything important. She looked him in the eye, and gave him the certificate to see up close. “Please. The circles are out of commission and the detective wants a report on Peregrine as soon as possible. I was the nearest person.”

“I can give you a report,” said the nurse uncertainly, looking down at the page.

“Good. Then you can come with us and do that. But I need to _see_ him. He’s being guarded for a reason.” Valkyrie kept looking at the nurse firmly in the eye until he nodded and folded up the page, and gave it back.

“He’s down the hall,” he said, pulling out a map and showing them with a pen. “Right here, in room D.”

“Thank you,” said Valkyrie, taking the map and moving down the passage.

“So cool,” Peep whispered, and Valkyrie grinned at her.

“That’s the benefit of being an apprentice. Come on; we have to hurry.” She broke into a jog and Peep followed. Renn ambled along behind, letting them get ahead and then Teleporting to the corner just before they disappeared. It was annoying, but Valkyrie kept her mouth shut. “There’s going to be a guard,” she said. “They probably won’t let the two of you in, and I can’t make them.”

“No worries,” said Peep. “That’s what Fletch is for.”

Valkyrie debated telling them they weren’t allowed to come in, Teleporter or no Teleporter, but she knew they wouldn’t listen. If she tried to tell them that, they were just less likely to do what she said if anything went wrong. Besides, she had an idea, and it depended on Fletcher getting past the guard. So she said nothing, jogging down the hall with the map in her hand until she came to the right corridor and turned down it to see the guard blocked the way. His badge said ‘Officer Leander’.

“Sorry, ma’am,” said Leander kindly, “this hall’s restricted.” He nodded toward Fletcher with an impassive sort of amiability. “Renn.”

“Hi,” Fletcher muttered with a weak wave.

“If you’re going to try and Teleport past me, I’m going to have to remind you how parole works,” said Leander.

“You’re on parole?” Valkyrie asked, raising her eyebrows.

“No,” Fletcher said with a scowl. “They just like threatening me with a bound cell to keep me dancing to their jig.”

“From everything I’ve heard you’re throwing a temper tantrum because you can’t do whatever you like anymore,” Valkyrie said flatly. “Boo-hoo. Join the rest of us, build a bridge and get over it. The world moves on without you.” Ignoring Fletcher’s glower, she turned back to Leander and gave him her certificate. “I’m Detective Vex’s apprentice. I’ve got clearance.”

Leander took the page with a mildly impressed expression. “So you are. And them? They’re not on the list.”

Fletcher had met Peregrine, Skulduggery had said. Valkyrie was wondering whether he knew Peregrine’s name and recognised it as belonging to someone he knew. She was betting not. “They’re with me,” she said, looking evenly at Leander. “I need them.”

“You need a Teleporter?”

“Check your phone,” said Valkyrie. “The tower’s down, and the circles aren’t working.”

Leander checked his phone with a frown, and stood up just a touch straighter, and when he looked at her his expression was serious. “I think I’d better come with you.”

“I think that’s a good idea, Officer. Thank you.”

Leander looked at Renn, bringing his rifle forward. “Stay in the back,” he warned. “If we have to evacuate the patient, that’s on you.”

Fletcher looked stunned. “Me? Why me? You guys don’t even like me.”

“It’s not about like,” said Leander. “It’s about who can get the job done. Right here and now you’re the person who can get the job done. You should stay with him, miss.” That was at Peep. “Ma’am.”

He nodded at Valkyrie, so Valkyrie took the lead spot just ahead of him and a step to the side so he could shoot over her shoulder if he needed to. She really, really hoped those guns weren’t as loud as Skulduggery’s were. She’d seen him fire them once, on a makeshift shooting-range near Descry’s cottage while Dad was supervising.

Her heart was pounding. Over the past six months Saracen and Dexter and Anton had taken her through a few ‘simulations’ as if she’d have to secure a room from an enemy. It had been in the interest of self-defence, in case someone else came after her family, but it was still nothing like the real thing. Her whole body tingled with adrenaline and fear at once, and her feet felt like lead.

Valkyrie ignored the feeling and moved to the opposite side of the door as quietly as she could, and looked up at Leander, lifting her hand to count down silently. When she reached three she turned the handle and pushed the door open, and Leander entered, sweeping the room and the bathroom. Valkyrie entered on his heels, pushing the door all the way back so she could be sure no one was behind it.

“It’s clear,” Leander announced, and lowered his rifle but didn’t holster it.

Valkyrie made a bee-line for the bed to look at Peregrine. He was lying on the bed, looking pale and with a mask over his face. It looked like a mask to help with breathing, but it wasn’t attached to anything and it had sigils on it. He was, she was glad to see, _actually_ breathing.

“Wait a minute,” Fletcher said, and Valkyrie looked up. He looked almost as pale as Peregrine. “I know this bloke. He and some other guy came to me a few months ago to tell me all about how I was misusing my magic and that they could teach me better ways.”

“His name’s Emmett Peregrine,” said Valkyrie. “He was poisoned two nights ago. A group of people called the Diablerie have been trying to kill him. The other man’s name was Cameron Light.”

“Where’s he?” asked Fletcher.

“He was murdered three days ago,” Valkyrie said quietly. “That’s why Dexter brought Peregrine here. He and Erskine thought he’d be safer here.”

Fletcher didn’t answer, but he still looked shaken, and didn’t argue when Peep put her hand in his. Valkyrie turned toward Leander, opening her mouth to ask him what his orders were in case the circles and tower were shut down. She was only in time to see Sanguine halfway out of the wall and Leander collapsing to the ground with a slit throat.


	16. Opportunity rings

For a few moments Valkyrie stood frozen. Sanguine looked up and stepped out of the wall like he was brushing off a suit, and let Leander’s body fall.

“I was expectin’ Vex,” he said, sounding disappointed as he wiped off his razor. He pointed it at Valkyrie. “But you’re their pet, aren’tcha? You’ll do.” He grinned at her.

“Fletcher,” Valkyrie said quietly, shifting to the side so she was between Sanguine and the bed, “take Peep and Peregrine downstairs to the precinct.”

There was no answer, and Sanguine laughed. “He’s already gone. Teleporters, right? They’re all cowards.”

Valkyrie looked up at him. He was taller than her, and stronger, and weighed more, and he had a weapon. Looking at Leander’s body made her want to gag, but he had a weapon as well. The rifle was slung over his shoulder; she’d never be able to get it off, and didn’t know whether she could carry it. But he had a pistol.

She wished she’d thought to wear the clothes Ghastly had made her, but she’d been going to visit her family. Why would she need special clothes? She lit a flame in the hand behind her back. “What are you going to do?”

Sanguine mulled it over. “Was thinking about killing you, but it seems almost unfair. You’re practically a baby. You’re no challenge. I was promised fun and games. I was promised _anarchy_.” He paused and then added, “Not that I’ve never killed a baby, mind. Wouldn’t want you to think less of my skill in the trade or anythin’.”

“So don’t kill me,” said Valkyrie, edging to the side, closer to Leander. Her voice came out calmer than she thought possible with how her heart was pounding. She added quickly, “ _Yet_ , I mean. Obviously, I can’t expect you to not do your job.”

He looked amused. “Yeah? You had other ideas, princess?”

“You could always take me hostage,” Valkyrie pointed out. She tried to scan the ceiling without letting on that she was. It was a hospital. It had to have smoke-detecting sigils, right? “Peregrine’s bedridden. He’s unconscious. He’s not going anywhere. He’s not much of a challenge either. Wouldn’t you rather him be awake and helpless when you kill him? How many people can say they’ve killed a Teleporter, anyway?”

“Just one,” Sanguine admitted, and he didn’t look happy about it.

“And all you get is a Teleporter who’s unconscious.” Valkyrie nodded. “That’s way unfair. It’s like they’re saying they don’t think you could kill a Teleporter without them being unconscious. It’s like they’re saying you’re a bad killer.”

“I know what you’re doing,” Sanguine said, and he grinned. “But I kinda like you, princess. Just for that, I ain’t gonna kill you— _yet_. But I’ll put the fear in Vex before I do.”

He stepped back into the wall and Valkyrie lunged for Leander’s body, flinging her ball of fire up at the sigil she was sure had to be the fire-detector. It flashed and burst out with a siren, but no water sprayed the room. Valkyrie didn’t know if that was a mistake or a quirk of the city. Either way she just hoped the alert for the fire-department was working even with the tower down.

Her foot slipped in the blood pooling under Leander’s neck, and she felt the movement of air above her. She let herself fall and rolled over Leander’s body, and her shirt clung to her shoulder where she landed in the puddle. She fumbled for the handgun and got a grip, and lifted it, but the safety wasn’t where it was on Skulduggery’s gun. Sanguine came out of the wall by her side. Valkyrie dropped the gun and slammed a wall of air into his face. He swore and stumbled, and Valkyrie clicked her fingers.

The flames wouldn’t come, so she kicked at Sanguine’s knee. He jumped back and sank into the floor, and Valkyrie turned, her heard pounding. For a few moments there was stillness and the sound of the blaring alarm. She heard footsteps coming down the hall, and lots of them. That was when Sanguine seized her ankle and yanked her into the ground.

 

Erskine moved fast through the bullpen, ignoring the way people scattered ahead of him and ducked their heads to pretend to avoid watching. He didn’t usually enjoy being noticed, but right now he didn’t care. At the back, at Digger’s desk, one of the officers was detaining Fletcher Renn and a girl a few years younger than Valkyrie.

The girl was sitting in Digger’s chair, holding a skateboard on her lap. Renn looked too jittery to sit down, as though he was ready to Teleport at a moment’s notice. They were both pale. The officer saluted as Erskine got close, and Erskine nodded at her and then put his attention where it should be by pulling up a nearby empty chair.

“Hello,” he said calmly, focussing on the girl but including Renn with a glance. “My name’s Erskine. The officer here said you had some information about a man named Sanguine.”

The girl nodded, clutching her skateboard and looking at him with the sort of wide eyes he still got far too often for his own liking. “Sunnies,” she said. “He’s at the hospital.”

“He killed a guy,” Renn blurted out. “Just slit his throat, like—” He went green and the officer put a chair by him, and he collapsed into it.

Erskine looked up at the officer. “Prep a group to send to the hospital. Keep someone nearby so I can give them another update before they leave.”

The officer nodded and moved off, and Erskine turned back to the girl. “What’s your name?”

“Peep,” said the girl.

“Alright. Peep, Fletcher, I need you to start from the beginning. Why were you in Peregrine’s room?”

“Valkyrie,” said Peep at once. “She said we had to, cos Sunnies was gonna kill him and she couldn’t call anyone. The tower was down.”

Erskine’s gut went cold, but he managed not to let his expression change. “How did you meet Valkyrie?”

Peep hesitated. “She said if I helped you’d be able to help Dad.”

“Is your dad missing?”

Another hesitation. Erskine waited with every appearance of patience, holding her gaze and keeping his expression as open and gentle as he could.

“Dunno,” said Peep at last, but softly, tracing the design on the bottom of her skateboard. “Dad’s got some friends, though. Some weird friends who think the Tír should be all for faeries and mortals like me ’n him should go our own places. Valkyrie said her detective would wanna know about that, but her phone wasn’t working.”

“How did you meet her?”

“In the circle courtyard,” said Peep, “near the building where the man in Joseph’s coat lives. Dad had some of his friends over this morning so I cleared out, but I heard ’em talking about a peregrine. You know, the bird. Thought I did, anyways. So I followed him and Sunnies, and they went to the building where that man lives. Valkyrie came out and she was havin’ trouble figuring out the circle, so I helped her out.”

“Okay,” said Erskine. “Then what?”

Peep ducked her head lower, talking in a very small voice. “Then she knew about Dad. I dunno how. She said sometimes she just knew things.” Erskine couldn’t help but smile. “She knew Dad was treatin’ me weird and asked, and promised she could get y’all to help, so I told her about Dad and his friends and Sunnies. That’s when she tried to call and couldn’t, and wanted to know the quickest way to the tower. So I took her to Fletch.”

Erskine looked over at Renn. “That’s what you remember too?”

“Yeah,” Renn muttered.

Erskine turned back to Peep. “So Fletcher took you to the hospital?” It made sense. Peep had said Valkyrie wanted the fastest way to the tower, but she would have known Fletcher wouldn’t want anything to do with the precinct. The fastest way to get Peregrine help would have been to go directly to the hospital and hope the guard there could get backup. _Good girl._

Peep nodded. “Valkyrie got the nurse to tell us where Peregrine’s room was and then the guard came in with us to make sure no one else was there.” She gripped her skateboard tighter. “It—it looked like no one was, and then Sunnies came out of the wall and—”

“It’s okay,” Erskine cut her off, taking her hands and squeezing them. “You don’t have to finish.” He looked to Fletcher. “Valkyrie told you to bring Peep here? What about Peregrine and Valkyrie?”

Renn’s face went slowly red. “Well, I mean, I was startled, and—”

“You left them behind,” Erskine said, and couldn’t help the cold note in his voice.

“I was startled,” Renn protested. “I just watched someone get bloody well _murdered_! I wasn’t going to stick around!”

Erskine looked at Fletcher steadily until the Teleporter flushed more deeply and looked away.

“You left behind a fourteen-year-old apprentice to defend an unconscious man by facing another man who had just murdered a trained officer,” Erskine said, “and you left her to face him _alone_. Consider that while you’re sitting on top of the city’s towers, and ask yourself whether your life is still one you want to lead.”

He rose to leave, to join the officers going to the hospital, when Peep blurted out, “Wait! What about my dad?”

Erskine paused and turned. “We’ll help him as best as we can,” he said gently, “but you have to understand, Peep, that he may have done some things for which he has to face the consequences. We’ll treat him well, if that’s so, but it still means trial and it might mean some time in jail. Do you understand?”

Peep’s face fell, but she only looked down and nodded silently.

“Fat lot of help you are,” Fletcher muttered.

Erskine gave him a stern look until Fletcher’s glower lowered. “There’s only so much we’re willing to help someone who keeps making their own life harder without any indication they’re willing to help themselves.”

He turned and walked away, leaving Fletcher sitting in his chair and staring down into his lap.

 

_‘Scout,’_ Dexter signalled to the man on his flank. Xun was his name. Xun nodded, lifted his rifle, and when he stepped out into the hall he was gone in a flash. He wasn’t a Teleporter—just very, very fast. The only reason Dexter caught a glimpse of him at all was by looking ahead, into the doorway, and a second later Xun was back.

_‘Two on the left, three on the right,’_ Xun signed, and indicated their locations relative to desks with a quick sketch on the ground. Dexter considered for a moment. He had four members of the Tír’s emergency-response unit with him, and he had only a basic rundown of their usual procedures. It would have been remarkably stupid having him in charge when he knew only so much of their policies—except that most of those policies were founded on things Dexter and the Dead Men had done during the war.

It only took a moment to communicate his orders. Xun vanished into the far side of the room. Dexter counted down on his fingers and then moved in with his second, Beverly O’Connell, at his shoulder. The person nearest turned to face him and he took her down with a non-lethal beam to the chest. Bev’s rifle hummed behind him. The three others in the room whirled, and Xun took one from behind while Dexter and Bev took the last two.

Dexter and Bev moved in, and the officers behind them covered the door while they secured the prisoners. Xun cleared the room, Bev secured the computer, and Dexter glanced around. This building wasn’t even a warehouse. It was a small office building. They hadn’t known it existed earlier that morning, but they’d found a wealth of mostly useless information in the warehouse they’d raided. This building’s address had been on several pieces of correspondence, so here they were.

Dexter picked up his phone to call Digger, but the call didn’t connect and he frowned at the absence of bars on his screen.

“Bev,” he said, holding up his phone, “does the city usually have connection problems?”

Bev looked up from the computer. “Never,” she said. Computers, she had informed Dexter gleefully on their meeting, were built using sigils just like everything else in the city. That made them cost-effective and energy-efficient, and really easy for a layman to put together in their spare time provided they did their sigil research.

All Dexter had been able to think was that it explained how Descry could get such good internet connection in the middle of nowhere.

“Then why are there no bars on my phone?” he asked, and his borrowed team exchanged glances.

“The only way that’s possible is if someone’s sabotaged the communications tower,” said Bev, looking furious and disconcerted at once. “Damn bastards. That building is a work of _art_.”

“How?” asked the woman guarding their prisoners—Aria Ritter. Dexter was fairly sure it was a taken name, but didn’t know what her magic was. In fact, he wasn’t even sure she was a sorcerer. In this city sorcerers weren’t necessarily the only ones with taken names. It still boggled him, even when he tried not to think about it. “The comm tower is at the top of Central. They’d have to get past the security circles, and if they’d come by air they would have been seen.”

Dexter felt cold. “There’s one man on Diablerie payroll who could do it.”

“No one within the Tír,” Xun said with a frown.

“I think that’s what Master Vex is getting at,” said Modeste quietly. She was their fourth, still leaning against the doorjamb with her rifle raised.

“He’d have come from outside the Tír,” said Dexter. That meant Batu was upping the stakes. A lot. All of a sudden the tip that had led them to the warehouse seemed very suspicious. Dexter glanced around the room again, his back prickling. “Bev, get into the—”

“I already am,” she interrupted. She was the only one who wasn’t looking nervously around the room. Instead she was tapping the holographic symbols on the computer’s dash. Dexter had to shake his head. Sci-fi movies had it right. He wondered whether that was because someone had let slip something they shouldn’t.

Either way, he couldn’t help, so he started searching the paperwork on the desk. The minutes passed tensely. There was some mail, but no envelopes—or at least none that had been post-marked. Most of them were empty. So many, in fact, that he’d already put one down before he realised there was something still in it—something small and flat, like a chip. He upended the envelope and a square disc of stone slid into his hand. It would have looked like a floppy, but it was smaller and covered in some of the tiniest sigils he’d ever seen.

“What’s this?” he asked, showing Bev.

Her eyes lit up. “Data-chip. Give it here, we’ll take a squizz.”

She all but snatched it out of his hand and dropped it into a slot on the computer’s dash, and prodded it until it clicked into place and lit up. The screen flickered, and she touched the holographic symbols. Dexter watched her, feeling very much like he had the first time Descry had proudly presented his first computer and tried to show them how it worked.

“Whatever it is, it’s encrypted,” said Bev, wearing a wild grin. Dexter couldn’t decide whether her enthusiasm was frightening or adorable.

“Can you—”

“Of course I can.” She plucked the chip out of the dash and set a piece with a magnifying glass attached over her eye so she could peer through it. “The thing with chips like these is that, if you know what you’re doing, you don’t need to decrypt them on the computer,” she said, finding a stylus in a pocket of her vest. “All the data is contained within sigils. That includes the encryption. Find the sigils that hold the encryption, and you can bypass security.”

“And can y—”

“Of _course_ I can, stop being ridiculous,” said Bev, her eyes narrowed as she worked the stylus on the stone.

“Did you study sigil-masonry, by any chance?” Dexter asked, feeling out of his depth and grasping for the only remotely familiar thing in this situation.

“Every techie’s an amateur sigil-mason,” Bev explained without looking up. “Coding on faery-tech is half about the coding and half about the sigils.”

Somehow that didn’t make Dexter feel any better at all.

Bev finished with the chip and shoved it back into its slot, and brought it upon the screen. “Damn, I’m good. Okay, let’s see what we’ve got here.”

Aria shuffled to the side to see the holographic screen. Xun glanced over. Modeste shifted as if she wanted to look, but remained focussed on the door. Dexter ignored them all and peered closer. At first he didn’t see anything in the scrolling images, but then he caught a flash of something familiar and threw out a hand. “Wait.”

Bev stopped. Dexter prodded at the hologram, and stared at the words that appeared. They were in Irish. They were in Irish, and he knew them.

They were the Elder Journals.

“Is that all that’s on the chip?” he asked, and he sounded shaken.

“There’s about a hundred files,” she said, “but yeah.”

“Can you tell me if they’re stored anywhere else? Or if they’ve been copied? Or how many copies there are?”

“I might be able to tell you if this is a copy itself.” Bev sounded uncertain, but given how she was eyeing him he was sure it was in response to his behaviour.

“It is,” Dexter said flatly. “This data used to be on CD.”

“Then they’d have had to code it to faery-tech.”

“How does that work?” Dexter asked. “Do you just—put it in some kind of adapter, or what?”

“Look,” said Bev, “it’s a complicated process. We don’t do oldschool anymore, and converting files to sigils is hard. But there’s an experimental technique I’ve been involved in developing which means we might be able to track any chips this data’s been written to. Only the chips, mind, not the original CDs.”

That was even better than Dexter could have hoped for. “What do you need to do that?”

“Time,” said Bev, and reached up with both hands to work the computer’s holographic dash.


	17. Digger

Being underground was dark and suffocating. It was all Valkyrie could do not to scream or fight, but her breath came fast and her ears were ringing. She wasn’t getting enough air. She couldn’t possibly be getting enough air. Even the warm grip on her ankle was lost in the cold earth around her. The dirt and stones felt like they should fill her nose but didn’t. They just parted around her and then closed around her head as she was dragged.

Finally they burst out into air and she was tossed to the ground. She rolled away, but heard a laugh and felt a boot against her side to stop her. She gasped when her ribs twinged, but it wasn’t a hard kick. Just a warning. She rolled onto her back to catch her breath and looked up at the trees overhead. They must be in the Green.

Sanguine looked down at her, twirling his razor. “Gonna lie there all day, princess?”

“Was thinking about it,” she said weakly.

“Gotta warn you that I don’t drag around useless weight.”

“I’m up.” She rolled over again and pushed herself to her knees, then onto her feet. He draped an arm around her shoulder, holding the razor casually to her neck. She froze, hardly daring to breathe.

“Good. Walkin’ this way.”

He took a step and she followed stiffly, holding herself back against his chest to avoid the blade as much as possible. That made her back crawl, but it was better than getting cut. “Where are we going?”

“Right into the lion’s den,” he said. “Let’s shake this perfect city up a bit, yeah?”

Only then did Valkyrie focus on more than the path under her feet and trying not to get sliced and diced. They were heading for Central’s tower. There were people in the courtyard at the base, standing in groups and whispering. The largest group was around the circle, waiting for it to come back on. At first no one noticed them, but they crossed the cobblestones toward the centre and someone gasped.

“Mornin’,” Sanguine said, nodding to the shocked woman. He raised his voice. “Mornin’, everyone. Got a public service announcement.”

He waited for the ripple of awareness to spread enough that they were the centre of attention. Valkyrie took deep breaths through her diaphragm, keeping her upper body completely still, and forced herself to meet the gazes of the horrified onlookers.

“Great. Now, as y’all can see—”

“What the hell are you doing?” demanded a brunette woman in a sweaty jogging outfit, pushing to the front of the crowd. Valkyrie glanced up out of the corner of her eye and caught Sanguine looking annoyed.

“Holdin’ a hostage,” he said in a clear ‘are you blind?’ tone. “Now as I was sayin’—”

“Then you can go ahead and let her go,” said someone else, and Valkyrie turned her head just enough to see the speaker. He was young-looking, maybe around Tanith’s age, with a petite Asian lady on his arm. The lady slipped her hand out of the crook of his elbow and smiled at her. Valkyrie managed to grin crookedly back.

“And who the hell are you?” Sanguine demanded, sounding exasperated.

“Officer Blair Dempsey,” said the man. He wasn’t wearing a jacket, but his shirt and pants looked like they might be part of a uniform, and his hand was on the holster at his side.

“Well, shit,” said Sanguine. “Thought you looked familiar. One of the border-guards, yeah?”

“Yes,” said Blair.

“Remind me to cut your pretty wife’s face before I go,” Sanguine told him. The Asian lady frowned. “ _Now_ , if we’re all done with the interruptions—”

“We’re not,” said the woman in the jogging outfit with the kind of predatory smile Valkyrie had only seen on Anton’s face. She moved further to the side, and Valkyrie felt Sanguine’s head move as he tried to keep her in view as well as Officer Dempsey. They were flanking him, she realised. Most of the crowd looked angry, in fact. There were a lot of people at the back who were keeping their distance, and a few who were running for the tower, but a good half the crowd were looking more furious than scared. “Let her go and we promise not to hurt you much.”

Sanguine hesitated. “Right. So just out of curiosity, how many of you are sorcerers?”

The woman in the jogging outfit raised her hand. So did Officer Dempsey’s wife. So did almost a dozen others. She even spotted a couple of people already with flames in their hands.

Sanguine nodded. “Okay then. Don’t suppose any of you are terribly, y’know, frightened and all? I _am_ a mass-murderer. Tell ’em, princess.”

“He helped murder thirty members of my extended family for a blood-ritual six months ago,” Valkyrie offered immediately, and was startled when the words didn’t trip on her tongue. The people in the crowd exchanged looks. A few more drifted to the back of the pack and put some space between them and the impending fight. The rest didn’t move.

“It was nothing _personal_ ,” Sanguine muttered, and sighed. “Look, I just wanna talk to Ravel and Vex. And the governor can come too, I s’pose. So if one of you can go get ’em, and remember that I’ve no troubles killin’ the princess here if any of you wanna get _heroic_ , we’ll all be pleased as peaches.”

He tapped his razor on Valkyrie’s collarbone. She really wanted to swallow and didn’t dare. The razor was close by her neck, but Sanguine was holding it casually. She took a breath and tested the air under her fingers, but the Asian woman caught her eye and shook her head, very slowly.

“Okay,” said Dempsey, nodding. “Let her go and we’ll get them for you.”

Sanguine laughed. “This ain’t a _negotiation_ , pretty-boy. I ain’t dumb.”

“You walked a hostage into the middle of the Tír,” said the woman in the jogging outfit. “That seems pretty dumb to me.”

“What would you know, anyway?” Sanguine grumbled.

“That depends on your question,” said a very soft voice from behind them both, and Sanguine stiffened. “Put down the knife.”

Valkyrie turned her head and blinked. The Asian lady was standing near them with a gun pointed at Sanguine’s head, but when Valkyrie looked back at Officer Dempsey, she was standing there too. Then she rippled and vanished like a mirage, and Dempsey shrugged and smiled sheepishly and moved his hand to reveal the empty holster.

Sanguine paused and shrugged, and then moved the razor away from Valkyrie’s neck, holding up his hands. “What the hell. I know when I’m beat.”

Valkyrie resisted the urge to slump and walked away from him, feeling suddenly weak. She heard a scrape and the sound of something electric firing. Dempsey lunged. So did the woman in the jogging outfit. She turned into an eagle in midair and Valkyrie instinctively dropped and rolled, and felt feathers brush her back. She heard Sanguine curse and a bird’s screech, and then the sound of cracking stone. She rolled onto her back just in time to see Sanguine disappear less than a foot away, and something that looked like the bolt from a ray-gun hit the stones. The eagle coasted to a landing and turned back into the woman in the jogging outfit. The Asian lady looked mildly annoyed, but she lowered the pistol.

“Are you okay, miss?” asked Office Dempsey, kneeling beside her. Her heart suddenly pounding again, Valkyrie leaped to her feet.

“He comes out of the ground,” she said, and her voice shook. The stones under her feet cracked but she jumped to the side, and Dempsey pushed her further away, putting himself between her and the stones. His wife fired the gun at the crack and two bolts of fire hit the stones, but Sanguine didn’t emerge and for a few tense seconds there was silence.

“I think he’s gone,” said the woman in the jogging outfit, coming back toward them.

“If he isn’t and he pokes his head up we’ll be happy to take care of him,” said a man with fire in his hands, talking loudly and stamping the ground with his foot. Now the people were starting to gather again, clustering around Valkyrie in a way that made her feel claustrophobic.

“He seems foolish for a man the precinct is hunting,” said Dempsey’s wife, coming to her husband and holstering his gun, and taking Valkyrie’s hand. “ _Are_ you okay, miss?”

Valkyrie took a deep breath. “Yes. I think so. Yes. How did you know the precinct’s hunting him?”

“The governor issued a statement,” said the woman in the jogging outfit, looking at her curiously. “Here now, I remember seeing you last night. You were with the Ravel-lookalike who lives down the road from me, and the blond friend he’s got visiting.”

“That _is_ Ravel,” said Valkyrie, “and Dexter Vex. I’m his apprentice.”

“You’re his _apprentice_?” Dempsey’s wife echoed, looking suddenly a lot more interested.

The skinchanger looked impressed. “That _is_ Ravel? I always wondered. I just figured someone like him would live in one of the flash high-rises, not a tiny flat on the water’s edge.”

“He doesn’t like a lot of pomp and circumstance,” Valkyrie said with a self-conscious shrug. People were staring. And whispering. She didn’t like it. “Listen, thank you for the rescue, but I need to report. What’s the fastest way up into the—”

The crowd suddenly swelled with people, and someone shouted for the crowd to give them room. She spotted Fletcher Renn’s stupid hair over the top of the tallest heads, right before he vanished again. The sudden relief was so strong that she wobbled slightly as she walked through the crowd. Erskine was the next person she saw, and the moment he spotted her some of the worry went out of his face. He still looked very commanding when he moved forward, right up until he pulled her into a tight hug. She clung to him for a moment and then pushed him away. No way was she going to be a baby in public.

“I’m getting you a leash,” Erskine told her, wrapping an arm around her shoulders more like someone supporting a comrade. She could accept that.

“I’d only chew through it,” she said, straight-faced. “Erskine, Peregrine—”

“We sent a squad to his hospital room,” he said. “He’s fine and under guard. We’re moving him to a more secure location.”

“Peep—”

“She’s waiting in the precinct. When we heard Sanguine had you here Renn volunteered to Teleport us down. Looks like it wasn’t necessary, though.” He glanced around, looking vaguely bemused, and nodded at Dempsey. “Officer. It was Blair, wasn’t it?”

“Yessir.” Blair saluted, blushing and looking like he might combust at any moment. Valkyrie hid a grin. “This is my wife, Mami.”

“Madam.” Erskine nodded toward her. “Thank you for your help.”

“You’re welcome,” she said, looking demurely at the ground.

“We’ll need your statements,” said Erskine. “But I need to get Valkyrie’s full report. Come on.” He hugged Valkyrie sideways across the shoulders and led her back toward the tower.

 

Giving her report took a lot longer than Valkyrie thought it would. Taking statements took forever, she already knew, but she had hoped being a witness was different to being on the team. She was wrong, but at least she could get information at the same time. Peregrine was in a different hospital room. Peep had been taken somewhere, but Valkyrie didn’t see her as they walked through the precinct.

“Where’s Dexter?” she asked once she’d explained what had happened. She resisted the urge to curl up in the chair, but she did hold her mug of tea tightly.

“He was off on a raid with Detective Digger,” said Erskine, sitting by her close enough to be comforting but not so close that she felt like she was being babied. It was still closer than she’d have let anyone other than her parents sit. Valkyrie couldn’t feel babied by the Dead Men when she knew they gave hugs to each other all the time. “He still is, as far as we know. We’re having trouble getting in contact with them because the comm tower’s down.”

“And Renn?” Her tone was bitter, but she couldn’t help it. He’d left her alone. The Dead Men would never have left her alone.

“He offered to help,” said Erskine, “so I asked him to go find Dex and Digger in the area they reported they’d stay.” A corner of his mouth lifted. “I think he’s sorry he left you behind, but you know boys. Can’t apologise for beans.”

“Prince Ravel?” The breathless voice made them both look up to the young man standing stiffly near the bench. He saluted so hard that Valkyrie was surprised he didn’t hit himself in the face. “Sir. Excuse me. Sorry. The governor would like to see you. She’s just visiting Master Deuce now. Sir. Excuse me.”

Red-faced, he backed away without turning until he reached the hall, then ducked out of sight. Valkyrie looked at Erskine, grinning. “You’re famous.”

“I wish I wasn’t,” Erskine muttered.

“You’re a _prince_.”

“I’m going to have to talk to someone about your education.” He got to his feet. “Coming?”

“Am I allowed?”

“You’re a Dead Men apprentice,” he said, and he was smiling. “In this case, you’re allowed.”

“Good. I’d have hated to have to sneak in.” Valkyrie put down her empty mug and got up. Her knees were a little shaky and she felt exhausted, but she could walk.

“I’d have hated to catch you.” They took an elevator upstairs, nearly to the top. There was a lot more traffic in the halls here than Valkyrie expected, but everyone made way for Erskine. So long as they paid more attention to him than her, she didn’t mind not having to shove through a crowd.

They came to a broad room at the top of the tower, with a glass wall facing the Green. The people inside moved around in what looked like chaos, but looking more closely, Valkyrie could see lines directing where people went and to which desk. Corrival was in the middle of it all, speaking to a black woman in a business outfit. Erskine waved as though he was shooing a fly and Corrival’s hair ruffled. He looked up and saw them, and said something to the woman before bowing and moving away. Peep trotted up to him, looking red-eyed but very solemn as she gave him an envelope.

The woman turned and came toward them, and Erskine bowed slightly. “Governor.”

“Adaeze,” corrected the woman.

“Adaeze,” agreed Erskine with a smile. “This is Valkyrie Cain, Dead Man apprentice.”

“Um, Governor,” Valkyrie said, bowing awkwardly.

“Miss Cain,” said the governor, nodding to her. “I need to return to my office. Would the two of you be so kind as to walk with me?”

“Of course.” Erskine offered her his arm, and Valkyrie fell in behind. They walked in silence until they reached the elevator and took it down.

“Corrival says the comm tower should be restored by midday,” said Adaeze, “and I’m aware of Sanguine’s movements in the hospitals, thanks to our young friend Peep. But I’m concerned about Master Vex.”

Erskine frowned. “Dex and Digger were together.”

Adaeze shook her head. “Corrival received a message from Digger just before you went to secure the hospital. Vex went to secure some buildings whose addresses they found in the initial warehouse, and she hadn’t heard back from him since. Nor have we.”

Valkyrie felt cold. “Sanguine’s always had a grudge against Dex,” she said. “What if he’s gone to find him?”

“Did Corrival get the locations Vex was securing?” Erskine asked Adaeze. She nodded and gave him one of the pages she was carrying. “I’ll take them to the precinct and we’ll put together some backup, then. If we’re lucky Fletcher has at least found Digger.”

The elevator dinged and the doors opened into the lobby of the governor’s floor, but she put her hand on Erskine’s arm before she disembarked. “Erskine, what Sanguine’s done so far is an irritant,” she said. “Either he’s severely underestimating us or he’s planning something far more serious.”

“I know,” said Erskine. “I’ll be in touch.”

Adaeze stepped out, and another black woman came through the doors in the lobby. She wasn’t as dark-skinned as Adaeze, and was thinner and didn’t have the high cheek-bones of the South Africans. Valkyrie couldn’t tell where she might be from. She put up her hand and shouted. “Oy, Ravel!”

Erskine stopped the elevator doors from closing, and Valkyrie followed him out. They met in the centre of the carpet. There were fewer people around here—just the receptionist and a guard and one or two officer-workers. “You took your time,” said Erskine. “Digger, Valkyrie Cain. Valkyrie, this is Bonza Digger. She’s running lead on investigating the Old Guard.”

“G’day,” said Digger with a quick two-fingered salute. Valkyrie was fairly sure the woman barely looked at her, even though it was hard to tell through the sunglasses. “Ravel, we’ve got a problem with Vex.”

“He’s not responding,” said Erskine. “I know, we got your message. We think Sanguine might have something to do with it, or at least gone after him.”

“Billy-Ray ain’t got nothin’ to do with it,” said Digger, pacing the carpet as though she was tense, but Valkyrie was watching her face. She was focussed, but not angry. She wasn’t even looking at them. “It’s Vex. He went off to secure some offices, got the shits about some unrelated intel and sent my team back to play messenger. Anyone else goes walkabout like that I’d rip a new one off the piker’s ass, but he’s a Dead Man. Figured he’d have reasons.”

Erskine frowned. “Dexter wouldn’t abandon a mission. How do you know Sanguine hasn’t got more to do with it?”

“Cos the bloody Yank’s right here,” said Digger, stopping and plunging her fist into the floor with a crack of stone. She heaved and the ground splintered and Sanguine exploded into the room. He spluttered but got his feet under him and swivelled, and Valkyrie saw the flash of his blade. Digger caught his wrist and twisted it to make him drop the razor, but he caught it in his other hand and slashed at her side. The razor bounced off her enchanted uniform, but she still rocked back with a grunt, letting him go. He jumped back and the ground around him cracked, but Digger slammed her palm to the ground and the floor shook. A fissure opened up right where Sanguine had meant to vanish and he stumbled while avoiding it.

Erskine moved forward and so did the guard, but something was off. Valkyrie saw the knife in the guard’s hand and shouted, and leapt forward. She kicked at his knee and Erskine turned and caught the knife aimed for his side, and twisted until the guard yelped and let go.

“Valkyrie, the governor!” Erskine barked. Valkyrie turned and saw one of the office-workers pull a gun. It wasn’t one of the ray-guns Erskine had said couldn’t kill people—this was one with bullets. Adaeze whirled and Valkyrie shoved the air, and the officer-worker was flung back against the wall. He struggled to his feet, but Adaeze beat him to the gun and held it on him while Valkyrie bound his hands using his tie. When she turned around she saw Erskine straighten up and the guard unconscious on the floor. Beyond him, Digger and Sanguine had just broken apart.

“Who the hell are you?” Sanguine snarled at Digger.

“Name’s Digger,” she said, and flicked up her sunglasses just enough to flash the pitted black hollows where her eyes should be. “Bonza Digger. Heard of you, Billy-Ray.”

“Figures,” Sanguine muttered, “there’d be another burrower on this God-forsaken city of water and _fish_.”

“I happen to like fish,” said Digger. “Give it up, Billy-o. Got nowhere to run I can’t follow.”

Sanguine glanced around. At the remaining office-workers keeping their distance. At Erskine on one side, Digger on another, Valkyrie and Adaeze with a gun on a third. He looked back at Digger, and then grinned. “Yeah, but you’ll spend all your time _followin_ ’.”

He threw himself back into the wall and it took him in, but Digger shoved her arms into the wall and yanked him back out with an explosion of stone and drywall. Sanguine’s razor flashed for her side but Digger’s arm blocked it, and when her other hand came up there was something sharp between her knuckles that drew blood across Sanguine’s chin. He swore and stumbled back, touching the scratch and glaring.

“I’ll be droppin’ by to visit you again,” he threatened, and pushed himself back against the wall, but nothing happened. He blinked and thumped the wall with his fist, and Valkyrie thought the look of dawning horror on his face was a thing of beauty. “What did you do?!”

“We’ve all got our curses, Billy-o.” Digger lifted her hand and a set of tiny claw-shaped blades gleamed between her knuckles. “You’ve got a razor whose scars never fade. I’ve got my poison.”

All the blood drained from Sanguine’s face. “What kind of—”

His face twisted and he clapped a hand to his chin like he’d been stung by a bee, and he sagged against the wall with a strangled yell.

“It’s platypus poison,” said Digger, turning her fist so the claws flashed off the light-sigils overhead. “See, the male platypus secretes a poison in his claws. Won’t kill a human, but it’ll hurt so bad you’ll _wish_ you were dead. It’ll paralyse you. It’ll hurt even through the painkillers. And after the wound’s all healed and nothin’ but a scar, it’ll hurt for weeks after.”

Valkyrie watched with fascination as Sanguine’s breathing grew more pained, and tears of pain gathered around his eyes. “What kinda—sadist—”

“Don’t use it unless you really piss me off,” Digger said. “The ripper thing about platypus poison is that it interrupts your magic. Stops you from using it. Stops you from _connecting_. Even people like you and me, Billy-o.” She crouched in front of him, bending her head to catch his gaze through their glasses. “It’ll wear off. But I spent six years workin’ with the geeks in the lab to develop a catch-all non-painful derivative. This poison will wear off, and when it does, we’ll dose you with that. Long as we’ve got you on that, Billy-o, we can bung you in a cell to rot for as long as we like.” She kissed her hand and blew it at him. “Rage on, mate.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> NOTE: The description of platypus poison, aside from the magic-dampening properties, is true. It's non-lethal to humans but excruciatingly painful and immune to the effects of morphine. It leaves a residual pain which can last for months after the wound has healed.


	18. Crux

_Remus Crux sat stiffly in his chair, a warming glass of lemonade in front of him. He wasn’t actually fond of lemonade, but he detested coffee and he had been sitting there long enough that he had needed to buy something or risk drawing attention. He was back in his shirt and blazer, which was far more comfortable than the ridiculously overdone suits Pleasant and his companions preferred to wear._

_He wasn’t sure why, precisely, he was sitting in this particular café at this particular time, and that irritated him. At first he had debated the wisdom of even attending, but the man who sent him the note claimed to have evidence relating to the safety of the Sanctuary at large. Pleasant and Vex had run off on their own errands without even a warning. It was Remus’s duty to pick up where they let slack._

_He’d arrived early, of course, to survey the area just in case. Now it meant he had to wait._

_“Detective Crux, sir?”_

_Remus glanced up sharply and saw an older man, looking very apologetic. He was sturdy, grey-haired, dressed in a badly-fitting suit lacking a tie. Probably, Remus thought, a sorcerer with only minor magic who wasn’t able to ingratiate himself into the magical society enough to rise very high. He even looked somewhat familiar. “Yes?”_

_The man’s wrinkled face collapsed into a set of relieved lines, and he thrust out his hand. “Paddy, sir. Paddy Hanratty. Thanks for agreeing to meet me.”_

_Remus shook the man’s hand reluctantly and broke off as soon as was polite. “Mister Hanratty. Why did you call me here?”_

_Hanratty took the seat opposite Crux, taking off his hat and leaning earnestly forward. “I wanted to be sure we wouldn’t be overheard. See, Detective, the Sanctuary’s in real danger and I wasn’t sure who to trust. But you’re an upstanding man who abides by the rules. I think you’re Ireland’s best chance.”_

_Remus almost swelled up with pride, but that wouldn’t have been professional, and he was always professional. Instead he leaned in. “What do you mean, ‘the Sanctuary is in danger’?”_

_Hanratty looked around nervously. “Well, it’s like this, see—I’m a janitor, and I notice things, like, and I … noticed things.”_

_A janitor. That was why he seemed familiar, even though Remus couldn’t quite place his face. This was it. This was the break Remus had been waiting for—the chance to prove to the Sanctuary that his methods worked. That there was more to being a detective than being smart-mouthed or handsome._

_“You’re safe here,” Remus assured Hanratty. “I can have you protected.”_

_“That’s very kind, Detective, sir,” said Hanratty with a relieved smile, “but I’d just as soon give it over to you and lay low for a while. I mean, no one’ll know I’m the one who talked, yeah?”_

_“Of course,” Remus said soothingly. “What did you discover, Mister Hanratty?”_

_The man glanced around again and it was all Remus could do not to scream at him to tell him already. Then Hanratty said quietly, “It’s that Elder, sir. Hopeless.”_

_“What about him?”_

_“He’s a mind-reader, sir.”_

_Remus frowned. That wasn’t what he expected. True, the Dead Men were very mysterious about Hopeless’s magic, but why would they bother to be mysterious about that? “So? There’s plenty of mind-readers about.”_

_“He’s not like the others,” said Hanratty, looking anxious. “He can do it without even being_ near _a person. Without them being asleep or anything. He doesn’t even need to try.”_

_Remus’s heart pounded faster. “You mean—he’s reading the minds of anyone nearby his office? Just like that?”_

_Hanratty nodded, glancing around again. “Just like that. I mean he just knows things anyway, doesn’t he? Who’d have thought magic like this would be possible? But it’s not right. He’s an Elder. Who knows what he’s doing with what he’s reading? Men aren’t meant to have that kind of power.”_

_“You’re quite right,” Remus agreed, trying to keep his excitement and revulsion in check. This explained everything. No wonder Elder Hopeless was so able to keep the Sanctuary running to his whim! He was probably blackmailing people left, right and centre. It wasn’t ethical, having a man like that in a position of power. It wasn’t right, a man being able to walk through peoples’ minds like he owned them. “How did you discover this?”_

_“It was in Mr Bliss’s office, sir,” whispered Hanratty. He swallowed hard. “Some papers I saw. The way Mr Bliss was acting. Forgetting some papers on his desk, but important papers, ones that turned up missing later on. Talking to himself, but only when he thinks no one’s there. It’s almost like—”_

_“Like he’s being controlled,” Remus breathed. More of the pieces fell into place. No wonder Vex and Pleasant weren’t making any headway on the Diablerie case. No wonder Hopeless was the favourite for Grand Mage. The Dead Men were manipulating things from the start. And the sudden appearance of the Diablerie! Remus had never believed the convenience of their appearing, after so many years, just as one of the Dead Men became an Elder. They were probably using it as a cover. A way to cause more chaos in the Sanctuary, just enough that they could take full control._

_That was likely why Hopeless targeted Bliss, in fact. Hopeless had effectively ensured no one would take Guild seriously, but Bliss—everyone took Bliss seriously. Remus wondered what the mind-reader had done. Blackmail? Mind-magic? Mind-magic. Who knew what limits Hopeless had, after all the effort he’d taken to make sure no one knew what his magic was?_

_Remus’s course of action was clear. He had to save Bliss, and he had to do so while avoiding Elder Hopeless. Once that was done, Bliss, Remus and Guild could surely hatch a plan to reveal the Dead Men’s true duplicity._

_“Detective Crux, sir?”_

_Hanratty looked frightened. Remus gave him the most reassuring smile he could muster, and rose, and took out a business card to slide across the table. “Mister Hanratty, you’ve surely saved lives today. If you need protection, please feel free to contact me. I must see to the Sanctuary’s safety.”_

_Then Remus turned and strode out of the café, and didn’t even bother to hide his smile. This case was all but solved._


	19. Breaking and entering

It wasn’t in Dead Man nature to worry. Actually, that was a lie. It was completely in Dead Man nature to worry. It was just that Saracen now felt as though the walls he needed to surmount to make the worry go away were much too high. Higher than they should have been.

“You’re worried too, right?” he asked Descry as he entered his father’s office without knocking and closed the door behind him.

Descry looked up and smiled weakly. That was ‘yes’.

“Have you heard from _anyone_?” Saracen demanded, sitting on the edge of Descry’s desk and rifling idly through some of his paperwork. Descry sat back, dropping his pen and flexing his fingers in the way he did when he’d been writing for long enough to make his knuckles ache. Saracen opened his drawer and took out the oil Kenspeckle had made, and poured a touch onto his fingers so he could massage Descry’s knuckles. The scent of sandalwood filled the office.

“You’re not senile yet,” Saracen grumbled as he rubbed the oil into Descry’s fingers. “I don’t see why I have to do _everything_ for you. You should be taking better care of yourself. It’s rude to expect us to pick up your slack. There.”

He capped the bottle and put it back in the drawer. With a fond little tilt of his mouth Descry signed, ‘ _Dexter was getting help with hiding Peregrine from Erskine.’_

“Really?” Saracen sat up. “Erskine’s talking to us now?”

Descry shrugged. _‘Yesterday they came by to ask Melissa about using Valkyrie for a mission. I didn’t see them.’_

But he would have felt them. Saracen studied Descry’s face for a moment, trying to figure out if the distant encounter had been especially difficult or not. Descry gave him an exasperated look, and Saracen shrugged. “I’m worrying. Shoot me. Where are they now?”

Descry’s brow wrinkled, just a little. It was _his_ worried face. He shrugged again.

Saracen felt a chill run down his spine. “How can you not know?”

_‘Dexter told me yesterday that he’d call this morning with an update. He hasn’t.’_

The chill became more pronounced, and Saracen said unnecessarily, “It’s not like Dex not to check in.”

Descry nodded. _‘Skulduggery has been investigating the Trope Kessel murder from fifty years ago. The Diablerie want to open a portal to the dimension of the Faceless Ones, but they need an Isthmus Anchor to do it.’_

“A what now?”

_‘It’s an item belonging to one dimension but residing in another. It holds open the portal.’_

“Something that belongs in one dimension but is in—you mean the Grotesquery?” Saracen sighed, leaning back on his hands. “Well, at least someone’s making some progress. Does he know where the portal is supposed to open?”

_‘Finbar pinpointed the location somewhere on Aranmore Farm.’_

“And now? How did your chat in the woods go?”

Descry gave him a smile that crossed between wistful and grim, and blatantly changed the subject. _‘He was going to speak to Gordon about the Sceptre.’_

Saracen had no response to that. If even Skulduggery was preparing for the worst, for the Faceless Ones to come through, then that was bad. Then a thought occurred and he asked, “What about Wreath?”

The last time a Faceless One had come through from this dimension, according to Dexter, had been when Skulduggery turned sane again. That meant the armour was strong enough to defeat a Faceless One. Descry had never explained what Death meant by the ‘power’ Wreath was supposed to have, but Saracen still didn’t like the description.

_‘We need to keep Wreath as far as possible from the portal.’_

And that wasn’t helping make him feel any better about said description. _Thanks, Dad. Thank you so much._

Descry shrugged and smiled with an innocent lift of his eyebrows, and knocked on his desk.

“I’m fairly sure that’s cheating,” Skulduggery said as he entered and held the door open for Valkyrie’s blushing new friend. “Look what I found on my way in.”

“Gail!” Saracen slid off the desk and bowed. “Good morning. Afternoon? Is it afternoon? What are you doing here?”

“I have free study on Friday afternoons,” Gail said softly without quite looking him in the eye. “I thought I could—I mean, Valkyrie wasn’t in school this morning …”

“She’s doing something for her apprenticeship,” Saracen translated for Descry, and then added for himself, “but she should be back tomorrow. Which doesn’t help you, because there’s no school tomorrow, but I’m sure you’ll both manage somehow.”

Descry scribbled a note on a page and held it up for Gail to see. _‘Melissa’s going to Paris for her anniversary and I need someone to run for me over the weekend. Care to help?’_

Gail’s face brightened instantly with hesitant awe. “I can—really? I mean, how can I help?”

Descry smiled slightly and tapped a stack of papers, and wrote, _‘These need to go down to billing. Do you know where that is?’_

“Yes.” The hesitance vanished, replaced by a beam. “May I leave my bag here?”

“Oh, you don’t even need to _ask_ ,” Saracen said dismissively. “Once I unloaded a half-eaten sandwich on him and he didn’t say a _word_.”

Gail hesitated. Descry threw a pen at him. Saracen ducked it, grinning. Skulduggery took the stack of papers Descry had indicated and handed them to Gail. “Here you go. Have fun. Get a receipt.”

“Urgent much?” Saracen demanded as the skeleton ushered the girl out and closed the door firmly behind her, touching the privacy sigil.

“I need to contact Dexter,” Skulduggery said. Descry slumped.

“You and us all,” Saracen muttered.

Skulduggery paused. “Ah. You’ve had no luck either, I take it?”

“He was supposed to ring Descry with an update and hasn’t,” said Saracen.

Skulduggery hesitated. “Far be it for me to suggest you’ve gone senile, Descry, but if I’m not mistaken phones can be used _both_ ways.”

A trace of fond exasperation touched Descry’s face. _‘I tried. I’m not connecting. Nor with Erskine.’_

“Either their combined magnetism has gotten them into trouble they can’t get out of without help,” Saracen muttered, “or they’ve killed each other. Which amounts to the same thing, really.”

Skulduggery nodded. “Alright then. So we’ve no word on Peregrine, the Diablerie’s movements, or Fletcher Renn. Excellent. Fantastic.”

_‘Spit it out, Skulduggery.’_

“Spit out what? I have nothing to spit.”

Descry, Saracen had found, was nearly the only person who could make Skulduggery Pleasant wilt with nothing more than a look. Not often, but when Skulduggery was feeling guilty and Descry had sacrificed his mental health in the recent past, he could get the skeleton to back down. And Saracen enjoyed it every time.

“I need help getting the Sceptre.”

 _At least he’s_ asking _for the help this time,_ Saracen thought, quite deliberately. Descry gave him a look Saracen wasn’t entirely sure how to read, except that it was some sort of cross between exasperation and agreement.

“Is that a good idea?” Saracen asked. “Getting the Sceptre?”

“It’s the only reliable method we have for killing Faceless Ones.”

“If I’m not mistaken the Sceptre has to be owned, and anyone who owns it is going to be a target for everyone and anyone who finds out they do. Exactly who were you going to volunteer for that honour? And before you say ‘yourself’, I’m going to exercise my right to veto and say ‘no’.”

“I wasn’t going to volunteer myself,” Skulduggery said, and at any other time he would have sounded affronted. Saracen didn’t know how to feel about the fact that he didn’t. “I’ve had my fill of semi-sentient objects, thank you.”

“Then who?” Saracen demanded.

Slowly Skulduggery directed his eyeless gaze at Descry. At once Descry shook his head violently.

“You know what people are thinking,” said Skulduggery. “What they’re feeling. If anyone can be trusted not to abuse the power, it’s you.”

Descry shook his head again, even more violently than before.

“Descry—”

_‘No.’_

“People are pushing for him to become Grand Mage,” Saracen pointed out. “It doesn’t exactly look good to the rest of the world if we give our supreme leader the most powerful weapon in the world.”

Skulduggery hesitated. “No, it doesn’t. But in that case, who’s going to take it? We need the Sceptre, which means we need someone to own it. Someone of the blood would even be best. Have Desmond and Melissa left yet?”

_‘No, but she’s gone home to pack and we’re not interrupting their anniversary. Give it to Anton.’_

Saracen laughed. “He’s going to _hate_ you.”

Descry shrugged far more helplessly than Saracen had ever seen him up until the last six months. _‘Who’s going to risk fighting Shudder? He doesn’t need the Sceptre. He’s certainly not going to be tempted to use it. When this is all over he’ll lock it in a closet and everyone will forget about it.’_

“Is that what happened to the Book of Names?” Skulduggery asked, a trace of amusement in his tone.

_‘Ask me no questions and I’ll tell you no lies.’_

“Is it a good idea to have the Sceptre, the Remnants and potentially the Book all in one place?” Saracen asked half-heartedly. What other option did they have? Anton was the steadiest, least corruptible person they knew, and that _included_ Descry himself. Even then, if Anton ever fell it would be to the Gist, and the Gist wouldn’t have any need for the Sceptre.

_‘I never said they’d all be in the same place. Just that Anton potentially has the care of them.’_

“That’s a fine line,” Skulduggery said. “Who’s going to break the news to him?”

Descry shrugged and waved at him.

“You must be joking.”

_‘You’re the one who wants help getting it. You may as well ask.’_

“Anton doesn’t want to talk to me,” Skulduggery objected.

_‘Anton knew you were in the woods the other night and he hasn’t told anyone. Give him a chance, Skulduggery. He’s abiding by Ghastly’s decision. That doesn’t mean he’s happy.’_

“I’m not sure Anton knows how to be happy,” Saracen muttered, and clapped a hand to Skulduggery’s shoulder. “If it makes you feel any better, I can be there while you break the news that our supreme leader is ordering him to take possession of the most powerful weapon in the world.”

“That fills me with such confidence,” said Skulduggery. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.”

Descry pointed emphatically at the door, but he was smiling as he did it. It wasn’t a complete smile, but it was certainly better than an hour ago, so Saracen looped his arm with Skulduggery’s and led him toward the door. “Come along, my lady. We’ve got a party to prepare for.”

 

The Sanctuary had, for a few years now, been unstable. Mr Bliss was not a man who enjoyed instability, even when he had been a youth. He recognised its need on the occasions it was required to root out the old and the damaging. This was not one of those times. This was a time when the instability had a very obvious solution. Perhaps not an easy one, but an obvious one.

That was why he came to Hopeless’s door, entering without knocking. There was a girl in there with Hopeless, a tall and pale girl with brown hair and the implication of Macha Morrígna’s stature. She looked up and saw him, and squeaked.

Hopeless touched her hand and got her attention with a gentle smile, and gave her a stack of papers. Bliss read his note upside-down. _‘The first paperclipped stack should go to administration. The second needs to go down to the Repository archivists. Know where their office is?’_

“Yes,” said Macha’s daughter, taking the pages. “I’ll be right back.” She hurried out and closed the door quietly behind her.

Bliss touched the privacy sigil and then came back to Hopeless’s desk. Hopeless looked calmly up at him, and waited.

“You already know what I’m going to say,” Bliss observed, “yet you’ll have me say it anyway.”

 _‘It’s rude to anticipate a request,’_ Hopeless signed, _‘and speaking aloud holds more weight to everyone involved.’_

“If you become Grand Mage I will support you,” said Bliss. It was not a decision he came by lightly, and saying it out loud didn’t change his feelings about it. A mind-reader in a position of such power was a very dangerous thing. Yet Ireland needed stability, and needed it now more than ever. Hopeless would make an exceptional leader.

Hopeless rubbed his face with his hands.

“You don’t want to be Grand Mage,” Bliss observed, and Hopeless shook his head. “And yet I will support you. You will make a better national leader than I. You know your people better than anyone could. You understand the threat your power represents. And we need a leader—we need one desperately. Grand Mages from other nations are beginning to speak of sending aid. If we are to keep foreign powers from vying for Ireland’s Cradle, we need a show of strength. A Dead Man as Grand Mage.”

Hopeless sighed and didn’t raise his head.

“You’re afraid,” said Bliss. “You should be. You can be too easily subverted, provided there are minds of great enough influence near you. That is why I will be your Elder. If I ever have reason to believe that you have come under the influence of another, if I believe your mind has been lost, then I will take action. I will tell who I must. I will ensure you cannot undermine our nation.”

 _‘The best thing you could do,’_ Hopeless signed, _‘would be remove me from office and hand me over to Anton, or one of the others.’_

“If I can,” said Bliss. “But I will only keep your secret as long as it deserves to be kept. The moment you become a liability, I will treat you as such.”

For a long moment Hopeless stared down at his desk. Then he looked up, and his expression was wry. _‘What does it say about me that I find that more comforting than not?’_

“It says you’re a man of honour and wisdom.” Bliss turned. “I will inform Guild and the Administrator. By the end of the weekend, we will assure the world it no longer has any cause to be concerned about the stability of the Irish Cradle.”

 

Remus waited impatiently just inside the Gaol. He didn’t dare get too close to Hopeless’s office—not now he knew the truth. Instead he was forced to wait somewhere further afield and send a note for Bliss to meet him. He had chosen the Gaol for its relevance. The Repository, perhaps, had more evidence—who knew where the Book of Names had gone?—but the Gaol was further from Hopeless’s office and contained one very valuable piece to the Elder’s trickery.

He would have gone to Elder Guild, if he could, but his office was far too close to Hopeless’s. No. Rescuing Bliss had to take precedence. Perhaps Bliss could coerce his disreputable sister into helping them defend themselves against the mind-reader. And maybe, at the same time, they could deal with the threat of the Necromancer as well.

Finally Bliss’s familiar towering figure came into view down the hall, and Remus stepped forward to meet him, inclining his head. “Mr Bliss.”

“Why have you asked me here, Crux?” Bliss asked in that deep monotone voice that made a shiver run down Remus’s spine.

“I’m bringing to you a concern,” he said, and turned toward the end of the Gaol, where the Necromancer was being held. “Have you been to visit our most recent, er, resident?”

“I have not,” said Bliss, following Remus’s lead as Remus had hoped, but overtaking him with one stride for every two of Remus’s. It left Remus trotting after him and feeling rather smaller than he actually was. He consoled himself with the knowledge that Bliss had that effect on everyone. “But I presume that is why you have summoned me here.”

“As a matter of fact, it is,” said Remus, hurrying more than he felt was dignified just to keep up. “Who really knows what happened that day?”

“I was there,” said Bliss.

“Of course,” agreed Remus quickly, speaking up to be heard over the prisoners’ taunts. “But with all due respect to you, Mr Bliss, you were only present for the end of it, after the armour was ostensibly contained.”

“And have the wards failed?”

“Not so far as I’m aware, but neither has the Necromancer given any sign of further intelligence.”

“Wreath,” said Bliss.

“I beg your pardon?”

Bliss glanced at him with those cold eyes, and Remus felt another chill. “His name is Cleric Solomon Wreath.”

“Of course,” Remus said again, reining in his annoyance in favour of respect. “My point is, Mr Bliss, we have no way of knowing if he is still in there, let alone in control. It could be that the armour has taken over and is simply growing used to having a flesh-and-blood vessel before it acts. The cell, as I understand it, had been modified so it doesn’t inhibit magic. That means the armour could, at any time, break out.”

“Presuming the armour is in control,” said Bliss.

“It’s a great risk to presume it _isn’t_ ,” Remus pointed out as they came to the cell. The Italian woman wasn’t present. Remus had made sure she was elsewhere. He looked inside the cell and allowed his lip to curl. Necromancers were the scum of the magical world. A vicious, moral-less cult who used death as their power. As far as he was concerned, one less Necromancer was nothing but good.

Besides, looking at this one was … creepy. All he did was stare into space. His eyes had no whites. The sigils covered every inch of him—so much so that Remus sometimes wondered how literal that phrase was in this case.

“He’s never responded,” Remus said, trying to control the shudder that wanted to overtake him. “He’s obviously a vegetable. It’s too much risk to keep him here, and not enough reward.”

“Why did you really bring me here, Crux?” Bliss asked without any hint of accusation.

“I needed your support, obviously.”

“Then you would have gone to Guild.” Bliss turned his attention from the Necromancer to Remus. “He, also, has this concern about holding Wreath here. That is why he supports Hopeless’s efforts to have Wreath moved elsewhere.”

That was the first Remus had heard of anything of the sort, and he tried to keep his face blank. There was no need to let on that he hadn’t known. He was a Sanctuary detective. He was supposed to keep on top of things. “There _is_ something else.”

“I know,” said Bliss, “and I have very little time to waste. Do not waste it.”

This was going to be the difficult part. If Hopeless was a mind-reader, surely he didn’t have the power to enforce his will upon such a man as Bliss without help. Mind-reading was a specialty, and that was where the watered-down version was concerned. A more powerful version would be just as specialised. Therefore Hopeless must have used some item, or some sort of sigil, and his knowledge of Bliss’s mind to coerce him. Remus hoped that meant Bliss would break free of such magic once he was aware it was there.

“Mr Bliss,” said Remus, very firmly and authoritatively, “you are under a spell cast by Descry Hopeless. He is a mind-reader and he is using his knowledge of your mind to control you.”

For a long moment Bliss simply looked at him. Remus held his gaze as best as he could, but it was very difficult holding a gaze as cold as that, and eventually he found himself looking away.

“I see,” said Bliss. “What makes you say that?”

Remus forced himself to look back. “The evidence. The Diablerie only made a reappearance after a Dead Man came into Sanctuary office. We have lost two Grand Mages in the two years since they became interested in Sanctuary politics. Lord Vile’s armour returned soon after, and then the Dead Men alone were supposedly able to _contain_ it. Now they’re failing to stop the Diablerie at all. Are we to accept this is all a coincidence?”

“You believe that the Dead Men are behind the Diablerie,” said Bliss. “What of Murder Rose and Gruesome Krav?”

“Obviously the Dead Men have contrived to make their cover as solid as possible,” said Remus. “Who, after all, will suspect the saviours of Ireland?” He stepped closer, standing straighter, trying to enforce on Bliss the importance of his words. “They’re controlling you, Mr Bliss. They’ve subverted your mind. Will you let that happen to you? To Ireland?”

For a very long moment Bliss stared at him. Remus held his gaze, but felt the sweat trickle down the side of his face.

“You’re an even greater fool than I had thought,” said Bliss at last, and then he turned and strode away, and left Remus staring with disbelief at his back.


	20. The raid

When Gail said she knew where the Repository office was, she had lied … slightly. She _had_ been there before, and she _did_ know where it was. It was just that she’d only been there once, when she was eight. So she delivered the other stack of papers first, and then made her way down to the Repository. The office was somewhere in the back and still accessible from the halls, but when she’d gone to visit it before she had moved through the Repository itself.

It had changed since then. The Book of Names was gone. Gail wondered where the Elders had stored it now the spell cast by the previous Council had been broken.

In the Book’s place was a massive cage containing the remains of the Grotesquery, and Gail looked down at the ground as she passed to avoid looking directly at it. She had heard about it from her mother. Macha told her Sanctuary gossip every night, unless it included her own work. It was a habit from a long time ago. It started the time Gail first visited the Repository, in fact. Gail had grown up knowing her mother had a problem because of the Cleaver’s imprint. She just hadn’t realised what that meant until the week her mother hadn’t come home. Gail had sent herself to school and managed to make meals for the first few days, but she hadn’t been old enough to cook and had been afraid to try. It was only when she’d got up the courage to go to the Sanctuary herself that she had discovered Macha had completely forgotten everything but her work—as a Cleaver should.

That was why Gail’s mother told her the Sanctuary’s gossip every night. It was a tradition to remind her there were things to care about outside of work.

In the end Gail wasn’t very surprised when she got herself lost in the Repository halls. She wandered for a little while, looking at the items and clutching the sheaf of papers, and hoping that she’d find the archway by chance. All the aisles were starting to look the same. How many dangerous magical items could the Sanctuary have, anyway?

Eventually she heard voices up ahead and broke into a jog, but when she rounded the turn she saw the metal of the Grotesquery’s cage, and stopped with a frustrated sigh. It took her another second to see the couple around that cage.

There was a woman, tall and sensuous, but sneering. There was a man, big like Mr Bliss but with long grey hair.

The woman spotted her and looked annoyed. “Krav. Behind you.”

Krav turned and Gail swallowed. He looked almost as forbidding as Bliss did. Maybe if she pretended she didn’t recognise the name they’d let her go. She said hopefully, “I don’t suppose you’re maintenance?”

The woman—she had to be Murder Rose—laughed. Gail’s stomach shrivelled up and she backed into the shadow of the aisle, and wished with all her might that they couldn’t see her, she wasn’t there, they couldn’t see her—

Murder Rose’s laugh cut off abruptly. “Where’d she go?!”

Gail had time for about a second of relief before Krav strode forward. There wasn’t enough room in this aisle for the two of them, but if she moved away from the shadows of the aisle he was sure to notice her.

A figure moved behind Murder Rose. Something touched her shoulder and electricity hummed and she screamed, and Krav whirled around. Murder Rose collapsed to the floor and Elder Hopeless stepped out, twirling a baton to change his grip on it. Gail stared with fascination. She’d never seen Hopeless’s face so forbidding.

“Bugger,” said Krav, and picked up an anvil sitting on the table beside him and threw it like it was a paperweight. Gail cried out a warning but Hopeless spun away and the anvil hit the Grotesquery’s cage, and in a clap of thunder it shattered into a million pieces. Some of them struck Murder Rose and she groaned and stirred, shaking off the weight.

Krav charged and Hopeless deflected his punch with the baton, sliding past Krav. He spun and whirled the baton, and before Krav could turn struck him on the back of the neck. Gail saw electricity sparking. Krav stumbled and collapsed right where Murder Rose was lying. She rolled to dodge Krav as he hit the floor, and in the blink between being prone and being on her feet she threw two knives at Hopeless.

He dodged and moved toward her, and she drew a dirk and thrust it toward him. She was slower than she should be, Gail could tell. Her face was set into a grimace of pain from being electrified. Hopeless blocked easily, twisting his baton around to disarm her. She caught the dirk in her other hand and struck again. Krav had gotten to his feet and he had a knife too, and Gail watched with terrified helplessness as he attacked Hopeless from the side.

Hopeless didn’t blink. He pushed off Murder Rose and spun. Their blades flashed at his back but the baton elongated and deflected them both, and one end of the staff hit Murder Rose hard in the solar-plexus. She dropped, retching, while Krav lunged. Hopeless shrank his staff and deflected the knife off his enchanted sleeve, and struck Krav in the face with the sparking baton. Murder Rose staggered to her feet.

Gail watched with wide eyes. She’d seen her mother fight before, dozens and dozens of times. She knew what skill looked like. Even the most talented fighter took hits and let down their guard, but Hopeless’s defence seemed impregnable. He moved around them, evading or parrying their strikes with a kind of grace that made it seem like he wasn’t even touched by gravity. They tried to push him toward the death-ward around the Grotesquery’s cage, and he slipped out from between their tag-team like a ghost.

They didn’t even make a mistake. At least, not that Gail saw. It was just that Hopeless couldn’t be caught, couldn’t be stopped. Murder Rose took a punch to the jaw and went down and didn’t get back up again, and when Gruesome Krav took a third electric-shock a moment later he went down too.

For a moment there was quiet. Hopeless put his baton on his back, where it stuck, and then turned and looked directly at Gail, and beckoned. His eyes looked strange—almost black. Gail swallowed and stepped away from the shadows, and hurried across the floor. She tried not to look at Murder Rose or Gruesome Krav.

“Are they still alive?” she asked in a small voice. Hopeless smiled reassuringly and nodded, and Gail relaxed. She realised she’d been clutching his papers so tightly they’d crinkled, and tried to flatten them out. Hopeless took her hand and she glanced up, and he looked at her very seriously. If there’d been anything strange about his eyes before, it was gone now.

He took the papers and turned one over so he could write on the back. _‘Someone has caused a security breach upstairs. The Cleavers are occupied. I need to stay here to guard the Grotesquery and the Diablerie until the Cleavers can take over.’_

“Okay,” Gail said in a small voice. “They’re coming, though, aren’t they?”

Hopeless shrugged. _‘Internal communications are down.’_

“Oh.”

_‘I need you to go to Bliss or your mother and make sure they know I need backup.’_

“Okay.”

_‘I also need you to go and get something from my office. A thin book. Leatherbound, with a cross and a pentagram on the spine. It’s on the right-hand bookcase, third shelf from the top, on the end.’_

“Okay.”

_‘If anything happens to me, make sure Ghastly Bespoke, Erskine Ravel or Creyfon Signate get it. One of the other Dead Men if you must. At all costs, not the Administrator or Remus Crux.’_

Gail swallowed hard. Her heart was pounding so loudly she swore she could hear it echoing around the room. She wanted to look away, but Elder Hopeless held her gaze with such seriousness that she couldn’t. “What’s the book called?”

_‘It doesn’t have a title on it. You’ll know which one it is by the cross and the pentagram.’_

Movement behind Hopeless caught Gail’s eye, and she froze. What she’d mistaken for the echo of her heartbeat was not, in fact, the echo of her heart. It was a dozen Hollow Men entering the Repository.

Hopeless went very still in front of her, and the lines around his eyes tightened. He took her hand and drew a sigil on it. She recognised its type as a security key. He squeezed her shoulder and smiled at her with such confidence that for a moment she knew everything would be okay.

Then he mouthed ‘run’ and pushed her away, and the last thing she saw before she took off toward the other exit was him spinning around and reaching for the baton on his back.

 

“What’s going on?” Guild snapped as he strode down the hall toward the Administrator. All the security doors had suddenly slammed shut fifteen minutes ago. It had taken him that long to get his door to accept his authority and open. It was a new security deterrent, suggested by the Administrator and only just implemented. They hadn’t even had a chance to test it yet. Obviously it still had some bugs in the system.

Damn. He hadn’t told Hopeless about it, and had hoped to have the testing done when the redhead wasn’t present. Now he’d have to explain himself.

“I don’t know,” said the Administrator, turning to face him and looking tense. The sigils under her hands were lit up, but the door she was trying to open hadn’t moved yet. She patted down her pocket for a stylus. “The system went off without warning.”

“An incursion, or a mistake?” Guild asked as he came closer to peer over her shoulder. Sigils weren’t his strong point, and apparently the doors were more complicated than he thought. He didn’t recognise any of them at all.

“I couldn’t say,” said the Administrator, and took a knife out of her pocket and plunged it into his gut. Guild jerked and pain exploded in his belly, and he staggered back, clicking his fingers. Fire roared and the Administrator screamed. Before Guild could see whether she was dead or not his legs failed on him and he hit the floor, and the pain of his landing made him black out.

 

Mr Bliss deactivated a security door and found himself face-to-face with Macha Morrígna. She saluted him. “Sir.”

“Update,” he said, striding past her into the corridor. She matched his pace.

“The security keys Elder Guild gave us are faulty,” she said. “We’ve been unable to move about the Sanctuary or determine whether there is an invader from the specified location as indicated by the system.”

“There won’t be,” said Bliss. “But there _is_ an invader.” He would have been trapped in the Gaol himself if he didn’t have the right key. The only reason he had the right key was because Hopeless had given it to him. “The Administrator’s whereabouts?”

“Unknown.”

“Wherever she is,” said Bliss, “she’ll be trapped herself.” Hopeless had made sure of that. The Administrator had intended to divide the Sanctuary’s forces by giving them the wrong keys and keeping the right for herself. Why, Hopeless hadn’t known, only because the Administrator herself hadn’t known; now it was clear. Interrupting the halls would have meant chaos and blocked the Cleavers from attending the Grotesquery.

Hopeless was likely already down there.

Bliss wrote a sigil on a piece of paper and gave it to Macha. “Use this to unlock the doors. Send someone to detain Detective Crux.”

She nodded and dropped back to disperse it to the Cleavers. Bliss signalled to two of them and strode on toward the Elders’ offices and the Repository, unlocking door after door. He paused at one. It was hot to the touch. He indicate the Cleavers to be aware and unlocked it. It opened with the scent of smoke, and Bliss looked down at the Administrator’s mangled body. She was burned, but not enough to die from it; she was an Elemental, after all. It looked as though she been crushed, but there was nothing on top of her. He stepped over her and into the hall, and saw Guild slumped against the wall. There was a knife by his feet.

He was alive, Bliss found when he kneeled by him. Gut wounds killed slowly. “Summon a healer,” he ordered one of the Cleavers. “Guard him.”

Macha caught up to him at a jog, bypassing the Cleaver he sent to the medical ward. “There’s no sign of any invaders,” she told him, “but we’re still covering the Gaol and the rest of the Sanctuary.”

Bliss gazed down at Guild’s pale face. Crux was tricked into keeping Bliss himself occupied. Guild was clearly the target of the Administrator. What had been done to stop Hopeless? The Diablerie had left nothing to chance. They wouldn’t have forgotten Hopeless—especially not if Batu knew about Hopeless’s magic.

He rose and moved toward Hopeless’s office, but before he could reach it Macha’s daughter came out, pale and clutching a book. He put a hand on her shoulder. She shrieked and whirled and her hand shot out, and suddenly Bliss felt heavy, so heavy his knees almost buckled. She saw it was him and closed her hand and snapped it back to her side, and went ashen. “I’m sorry! I didn’t mean it!”

Bliss grunted and righted himself on the wall. “You didn’t tell me your daughter was a gravity-mage.”

“What?” Macha said, as startled as he’d ever seen her. The girl’s face greyed further, and her eyes darted around.

“It’s how I could run away from bullies so fast,” she whispered as if it was something of which to be ashamed. “I’m sorry, I used have a lot more control but I haven’t used it in so long and I was never very good at using it on other people anyway, I was always too scared—”

“Why are you using it now?” Bliss asked.

“Elder Hopeless told me to run,” she said. “He said I needed to get you as fast as possible, and that was the best way, but it’s hard for me to switch between disciplines very quickly so now I’ve started using it again I haven’t been able to concentrate enough to stop yet—”

“Slowly,” said Bliss.

She took a deep breath. “Murder Rose and Gruesome Krav were trying to break into the Grotesquery’s cage, but—”

“Were?” Macha demanded sharply.

“Elder Hopeless fought them off, all by himself,” said the girl, wearing an awestruck expression. Her face fell a moment later. “But then a group of Hollow Men came into the Repository, about a dozen, I think, and there were more behind them—”

Bliss turned sharply and strode down the hall just short of breaking into a run. The death-circle of sigils around the Grotesquery’s cage killed any living thing that tried to enter it, but Hollow Men weren’t living. They could, conceivably, batter the cage until it broke. Yet the only reason Hollow Men would appear so late in this incursion, rather than being used as cannon fodder, was if they were waiting for bait to be taken.

Hopeless couldn’t read the minds of Hollow Men. He’d never be able to fight off so many alone. They had been waiting for him to arrive at the Repository.

“Get her report,” he ordered Macha, and then turned the corner and was gone.

 

Gail faced her mother, feeling shaky and made of rubber, and with her stomach churning. It was a combination of nerves and exhaustion she didn’t like. “He told me to run,” she repeated, because it was the only thing she could think to say.

Her mother looked at her with cold eyes and for a moment Gail thought she’d forgotten Gail was even related to her. Then Macha’s face softened and she put a hand on Gail’s head, not gently but affectionately and almost sadly. “I told you once it was cowardly to run from bullies, didn’t I?”

“Yes,” Gail whispered, “but that’s not why I stopped.”

Macha nodded. “Tell me later. What else happened?”

“That’s it,” said Gail, and clutched the book tighter. “Except that he said I should get this book from his office, and only give it to Mr Bespoke, or Mr Ravel, or someone named Creyfon Signate. And not, underline, Detective Crux or the—Administrator.”

Automatically she tried to glance past her mother toward the Administrator’s corpse, and then looked down at the floor instead, and swallowed hard. She’d already thrown up in Elder Hopeless’s wastebasket. She really, really didn’t want to throw up on her mother’s shoes.

Macha’s hand tilted her chin up and wiped away the tears on her cheeks, and only then Gail realised they were wet. Macha looked at her with cold Cleaver’s eyes, then pulled her into the second hug Gail could remember ever having gotten from her. All at once everything that had happened in the last fifteen minutes seemed far too much to bear. Gail’s chest felt like it was ballooning with too many emotions to exist, and she clutched her mother tight and cried.


	21. In the office of the Grand Mage

By the time Bliss returned with two Cleavers in tow, Macha had set up a command centre in the Grand Mage’s office. Gail was there, sitting in the armchair and sipping her tea quietly, too exhausted to even be sure of her emotions. Her mother had made her give a proper statement, but then she and the other Sanctuary employees had left Gail alone.

No one seemed quite sure what to do. One Elder was in the medical wing, unable to give orders for another couple of hours. The Administrator was … gone. No one had seen Dexter Vex for over a day, and Gail had explained that Saracen Rue had gone to help Skulduggery Pleasant with something. Hopeless was down in the Repository with Bliss, who was the only one who seemed to have any clue what was going on.

He entered at a stride and Gail looked up hopefully, but aside from the Cleavers he was alone.

“Elder Hopeless?” her mother asked.

“Taken,” said Bliss, and Gail’s stomach shrivelled up. “As is the Grotesquery.” He set Hopeless’s baton on the desk and turned his icy gaze on Gail, and she shrank back into the chair. “Why were you in the Elder’s office? What did he tell you?”

“He wanted me to get a book,” Gail blurted, clutching the book on her lap with one hand. It was thinner than nearly all the other books in Hopeless’s shelves, but leatherbound and with the cross engraved on the front and the pentagram on the back. “I don’t know what it is, it doesn’t even have a title on it, but he said to make sure it gets to Misters Bespoke or Ravel, or Creyfon Signate.”

Bliss didn’t move perceptibly, but he tensed and his gaze grew sharper. Gail’s mother sometimes did the same thing. It never failed to make her shiver, but at least Gail could meet his gaze when she did. He asked, “Creyfon Signate?”

“You know the name?” Gail’s mother asked.

“Yes,” said Bliss, and held out his hand. “Give me the book.”

Gail hesitated. Elder Hopeless had been reasonably specific. Give the book to Bespoke, or Ravel, or Signate. If absolutely necessary, another Dead Man. Under no circumstances should it go to Crux or the Administrator. He hadn’t mentioned whether Gail could or should give it to Bliss. He hadn’t said she _shouldn’t_ , but his hadn’t been one of the names he said should get it either.

She clutched the book tighter and shook her head. “No.”

He said nothing. He didn’t even really do anything. Yet Gail fancied his eyebrow twitched, just slightly, and she flushed and looked down at her lap, and mumbled, “He said I should give the book to Bespoke or Ravel or Signate.”

Bliss dropped his hand. “Your dedication to your task is commendable. Very well.” He took out his phone and dialled a number, and even from the armchair Gail heard the phone refuse to connect. He dialled another number, but the phone refused to connect to that either. Patiently and methodically he dialled six other numbers, but the only one that went through was picked up by Ghastly Bespoke’s answering service.

Finally he dialled one last number, and Gail heard the faint sound of Tanith Low’s voice. “Hello?”

“Are you with Bespoke?” Bliss asked without preamble.

There was a pause and Gail didn’t quite hear Tanith’s reply, except that it was apologetic.

“Hopeless has been taken by the Diablerie,” said Bliss.

The response took a little while, but when it came, it was a much deeper voice that answered.

“They attacked the Sanctuary not long ago,” Bliss said, still calmly. “Hopeless went to secure the Grotesquery and was ambushed by Hollow Men. And Remus Crux, not long ago, warned me that Hopeless was using his magic to control me.”

The exclamation came loud, but too filled with static for Gail to hear words.

“I believe so, yes,” Bliss said. “It would explain how they were able to execute the assault in such a manner.”

“Where’s Vex?” came through loud enough for Gail to catch.

“I cannot connect to his phone,” Bliss answered. “Nor any of the others, except yours. Hopeless’s last directive was that you, Ravel or a man named Creyfon Signate should receive an important book from his office, and his courier refuses to give it to any but those whom Hopeless named. Given the circumstance, one might presume it is important to the situation with the Diablerie.”

There was a very long silence. Then Ghastly Bespoke said, “I’ll be there as soon as I can,” and hung up.

 

The hours lately had passed Ghastly by in a sort of quixotic manner. One hour might be numbed and hazy, and the next could be sharp with memories and pain. Initially he had tried to manage by curling up in Rover’s giant bed, clinging to a pillow and alternately staring blankly out the window and weeping. Anton had refused to let him do so, and instead put Ghastly to work.

He had always known maintaining the Hotel took a great deal of effort, but he hadn’t quite realised how much until this morning. A load of laundry needed to be done, nearly all the windows needed scrubbing, three rooms needed cleaning in preparation for new patrons (including one which had something crusty congealed to the floor near the armchair), the fridge’s pre-made meals needed to be restocked (Anton refused to let Ghastly near those), the common rooms needed to be vacuumed and dusted, and the DVD cabinet needed sorting because someone had put the wrong discs in the wrong cases.

Ghastly had never been so grateful for menial labour, nor had so much respect for how efficiently Anton did it without any staff to help him. The morning passed in a blur which prevented either numbness or pain from digging in its claws too deeply. He’d been piling laundry into the dryer when Anton found him to say he needed to help Saracen with a matter related to the Diablerie. Ghastly had felt something then—a bone-deep sort of terror he hadn’t felt since the first time his father had told him he was to make a nobleman’s suit alone for the first time.

Luckily Tanith had a little experience behind the reception desk, and between Ghastly cleaning and Tanith answering the phone, they figured they were able to manage while Anton was gone. No one suggested Rover stay behind to help. He’d already knocked over Ghastly’s window-cleaning bucket twice.

Ghastly wished he was still cleaning windows. Tanith pulled the van up in the Sanctuary’s back entrance and turned off the engine. For a few moments they sat in silence, and then Ghastly forced himself to open the door and step out. It was one of the hardest things he’d ever done.

He was still in the ragged jeans and ratty Dubliners T-shirt Rover had shoved at him this morning. Ghastly couldn’t remember the last time he’d worn them, except that it had been under duress, and he had wanted to burn them afterward. They weren’t worth wearing for anything other than the dirtiest of labour, he’d claimed. Right now, they were damp and dusty, with grimy creases at the hem where he’d dried his hands. He’d never in his life been out in public in such horrible clothes.

He couldn’t find it in himself to care.

Tanith followed quietly right by his shoulder as he moved through the Sanctuary. She was the only reason he didn’t just start wandering aimlessly, Ghastly was sure, let alone know where to go. They reached the Grand Mage’s office in decent time and entered, and every face turned toward them. Bliss was standing by the desk, the Cleavers’ trainer—Macha—by the wall, Guild lay pale on the sofa and there was a girl about Valkyrie’s age huddled in the armchair.

“Bespoke,” said Guild, sounding strained but looking Ghastly up and down. Whatever pithy remark he might have had was swallowed by the sheer exhaustion and the pain reflected in his expression. His hand rested on his gut in the manner of an injured man. Ghastly tried to wonder what had happened, and couldn’t. “What happened to you?”

“I was helping Anton clean the Hotel,” Ghastly said flatly.

“He didn’t answer when I called,” Bliss observed.

“He left to help Saracen with something. Where’s this book?”

Bliss nodded toward the girl, who was staring at Ghastly with wide eyes. She started when she saw him looking, and then blushed deeply, and fumbled with the thin book on her lap. “Elder Hopeless said to make sure you or Mister Ravel or Creyfon Signate gets this.”

Ghastly frowned. “Creyfon Signate?”

“He’s a Shunter who used to work for Mevolent during the war,” said Bliss.

A Shunter. Something about that rang familiar, enough that Ghastly felt a stirring of unease. “What kind of work?”

“Signate and his Sensitive twin brother worked under the Baron to try and find a way to open a portal without the help of a Teleporter,” Bliss explained. “Given the existence of the Grotesquery, they clearly succeeded. I had assumed they both perished in the attempt.”

Ghastly barely heard his last words. His gut hardened and all at once he felt the roar of his pulse in his ears. A Shunter who succeeded in summoning a Faceless One. A Faceless One that Skulduggery had killed.

“Ghastly,” said Tanith, very quietly, and when he looked down she held out the book to him. He took a deep breath and accepted it, and his hands shook.

“Descry made this,” he said distantly, and opened the cover. There hadn’t been a title stencilled into the leather, but there was one on the second page—what passed for one, at least.

_‘The Key of Solomon—refined, condensed and reversed.’_

The tingle of a chill trickled down Ghastly’s spine, and he turned the page. The foreword leapt out at him.

_‘To most Christians, ‘The Key of Solomon’ is a grimoire which usurps the name of a Biblical king. To most sorcerers, it is a book of fake magic spells. To a select few believers, it is a manual on how to open a portal to another plane—to summon a demon._

_This book is a treatise about the Key’s rituals, their methods, and the means to reverse them._

_In dedication to Sooth Kroma and his brother Creyfon Signate, who reached for the light and found darkness.’_

“Bespoke,” said Bliss.

Ghastly took a breath and realised suddenly his cheeks were wet. He shut the book and wiped his face. “It’s a manual on how to reverse portals.”

Bliss wasn’t a man who knew how to look surprised, and yet there was a vestige of it in his cold eyes. That, and dawning thoughtfulness. “The rituals Mevolent used to try and summon Faceless Ones were in a book he kept on his person at all times,” he said. “He still had it when I defected, but my sister informed me later that someone had stolen it not long after the rebellions’ leaders were murdered. According to her, he never discovered who was responsible.”

“It was Descry,” said Ghastly, and he sounded distant even to himself. “The book Mevolent was using was _The Key of Solomon_. Descry knew that. In the year that—there was a year Descry undertook several missions alone. One of them was to infiltrate Mevolent’s camp and steal Mevolent’s copy of _The Key of Solomon_ , and destroy it.”

Guild shook his head disbelievingly and then hissed pain through his teeth and laid his head back against the arm-rest. “I thought Pleasant was the craziest among you. It’s not comforting to discover otherwise.”

“But he succeeded,” said Macha, looking as impressed as an ex-Cleaver could. Mostly it was in the eyes.

“Yeah,” Ghastly mumbled. “He told us later. Erskine was infiltrating the camp at the time too, so he got out with Descry before he could get blamed.”

“Then Hopeless intends for Signate to use this book to close any portals the Diablerie might open,” said Bliss. “Good. At least we have a backup plan. I presume the others have gone to recover the Sceptre?”

“I don’t know,” Ghastly said.

“Yes,” said Tanith.

Ghastly shrugged. “Yes.”

“Where’s Vex, then?” Guild demanded, his eyes closed. “He’s supposed to be investigating the Diablerie along with Pleasant. For that matter, where is Crux?”

“Crux is under guard,” said Bliss. “I have reason to believe he has been subverted by the Diablerie.”

“ _Crux_?” Guild’s eyes snapped open. “Don’t be ridiculous.”

“He distracted me in the Gaol while the Diablerie attacked. The circumstances were too convenient. We cannot take the chance.”

For a moment Guild regarded him with narrow eyes. Then his weariness overcame his suspicion and he closed his eyes again, waving his hand. “Very well. Vex?”

Ghastly shrugged helplessly and glanced at Tanith. Tanith shrugged back, and they both looked at Bliss.

“I do not know where Vex has gone,” said Bliss evenly. “Or, for that matter, Ravel or Pleasant, or even Corrival Deuce.”

“I haven’t seen Corrival in over six months,” said Ghastly dully.

“Detective Pleasant went with Saracen,” whispered the girl in the chair.

That meant Skulduggery had been in the vicinity of the Hotel, Ghastly realised dimly. He waited for a reaction, but mostly, all he felt was heavy.

“And Larrikin and Shudder went with them,” Tanith said, and cursed, and then glanced sheepishly at the girl. “Sorry.”

Descry taken. Skulduggery, Saracen, Rover and Anton underground. Dexter and Erskine and Corrival who-knew-where. All of a sudden Ghastly didn’t feel heavy, but hollow. He was alone. The last Dead Man. The last Dead Man standing between the Diablerie and a portal and an invasion of the Faceless Ones.

“What are your orders?” Macha was asking someone, probably Bliss, but her voice came from far away. So did the responses. Ghastly couldn’t think, he couldn’t move. He couldn’t do anything but stand there and stare blankly down at the book in his hands. His heart pounded, and the sort of adrenaline gripping him was the kind that came with the yawning abyss of terror.

He couldn’t do this alone. He couldn’t stand up to the Diablerie, the Faceless Ones—not _alone_. Thinking back, he couldn’t remember feeling alone since … since his mother’s death. And even then, that feeling had only lasted as long as it took for the funeral pyre to burn down, for Dexter to take his arm and lead him away.

This time Ghastly truly was alone, because something in the Dead Men had shattered and he didn’t know if it could ever be fixed.

The sound of Disney’s _Beauty and the Beast_ playing far too loud ripped through the office, vibrating in Ghastly’s pocket. Ghastly jerked and dropped the book, and Tanith bent to pick it up for him. Everyone else stared as he fumbled for his phone and activated the speaker, his heart pounding a thousand miles a minute. The relief that swept through him was so intense that his knees shook, and he let Tanith push him down into a chair. “Erskine, where _are_ you?”

“Where are _you_?” Erskine demanded. “Descry isn’t picking up, and I can’t even connect to anyone else!”

“Descry’s been taken by the Diablerie,” Ghastly said, and didn’t even realise it until the words were out of his mouth. There was a heavy pause.

“He’s—what?” Erskine’s voice was full of disbelief. “How? When?”

“Perhaps an hour ago. They designed an ambush specifically to catch him,” said Bliss. “They know about his magic, and have managed to counter it.”

“Where’s—where are the others?”

“Gone to recover the Sceptre.”

Erskine cursed lowly. “Right. Damn. Okay. I’d like to think we won’t need it, but it could be just as well.”

“I do hope Vex has been working on the case to which he’s assigned,” Guild muttered.

“If you mean the Diablerie,” said Erskine a little coldly, “then yes, as a matter of fact, he has. He’s following a separate lead.”

“Pray tell us what you’ve learned,” Guild responded dourly.

“The Diablerie have been co-opted by mortals,” said Erskine, and Guild snorted with disbelief that made him pale and clutch his injury a moment later. “I know,” said Erskine. “It sounds ridiculous, but it’s true. Gallow and the others are being hoodwinked by a mortal who, for whatever reason, wants the same thing the Diablerie did a century ago. We think that’s how Batu got to Light. We have a list of names for his real identity, but right now the most likely is a mortal called Patrick Hanratty.”

“Crux spoke to a Mister Hanratty this morning,” Bliss observed. “It was Hanratty who suggested to Crux that I was being magically subverted, and that the Dead Men are behind the Diablerie’s plans all along.”

“Are you serious?” Valkyrie asked disbelievingly, and with a jolt Ghastly realised they were on speaker too. He hadn’t even known Dexter was involving Valkyrie in this investigation. “Crux thinks the Dead Men are behind the Teleporter murders?”

“He thinks it’s a play for power over Ireland, yes,” said Bliss.

There was some incredulous laughter in the background of Erskine’s connection and a woman said, “Sounds like he’s got some roos loose in the top paddock.”

“He’s an idiot,” said Erskine. “If we wanted power, we could have had it right after the war. It took nearly a century for one of us to accept just being Elder.”

“Such a conspiracy does seem rather unnecessary, yes,” agreed Bliss calmly, “given that just this afternoon Hopeless agreed to take the mantle of Grand Mage.”

The noise Valkyrie made stopped just short of being a squeal. “He did? That’s awesome!”

Ghastly watched Guild’s face. Judging by the way it soured, Bliss had already given him the news.

“Except for the fact that the Diablerie now have him,” said Bliss. “Have you discovered where they intend to open the portal?”

“No,” said Erskine grimly. “Hanratty was in the vicinity, but he used Sanguine to stage a distraction before we could get him. Dexter went off to investigate one of those distractions and he hasn’t come back, and I haven’t been able to reach him by phone.”

“Uh,” said someone Ghastly didn’t know, a young man, nervous and faint through the connection. “I dunno if this will help, but there’s this place he took me once, like, a month ago. In Ireland.”

“He what?” said the Australian woman.

“Yeah, he—” The youth faltered, just like someone who’d come under target of several penetrating gazes. “He said he needed my help, something only I could do, and in return he could get me out of—out. For like a day. But only a day, and then I had to go back in again. He said he had this hobby where he was looking for special magical places, and only a Teleporter could tell where some of them are, so … you know …”

“Where?”

“Some farm,” said the Teleporter nervously. “Like, Aaron More Farm or something, I dunno. I was just happy to be someplace else for a bit.”

“So Hanratty knows where the portal’s going to be,” said the Australian woman. “But he doesn’t have a—aw, he’s ripping the piss. XUN! GET YOUR BLOODY ASS DOWN TO THE HOSPITAL AND TELL ME WHAT’S UP WITH PEREGRINE!”

Her sudden bellow made nearly everyone in the office jump. Guild went green and sank further into his sofa.

“Ow,” said Erskine, “and also—things I should not say in front of a fourteen-year-old. Has anyone heard back from Peregrine’s guards since we moved him? No? Wonderful. The state he’s in, Hanratty could get him to do anything.”

“So you’ve lost Peregrine,” Guild said in a voice that wanted to be flat but didn’t quite make it on account of the fact the man looked like he was going to be ill.

“Dunno yet,” said the Aussie. “We’ll find out in a tick. Doesn’t look good, though.”

“Excellent job,” said Guild with heavy sarcasm. “Who are you, exactly?”

“Detective Bonza Digger,” said the woman, “and I’d be careful whinging about our incompetence, mate, seein’ as you just lost yourself a Grand Mage.”

Guild’s pale face regained some of its colour, and he pushed himself up a little further. “I am Elder Thurid Guild of Ireland,” he started coldly.

“Yeah, okay, don’t chuck a wobbly,” said Digger. Ghastly, much to his surprise, found himself smiling. “Renn, could you take us to this farm?”

“Probably?” said Renn, sounding just a touch lost. “I mean, I dunno, I’ve never tried to carry more than two or three people at once.”

“But you can do it in trips, can’t you?” Valkyrie asked.

“Well, yeah, sure, but—”

“You left me behind to face Sanguine alone,” said Valkyrie flatly. “ _And_ Peregrine.”

“I said I was sorry!”

“Kids,” muttered a man Ghastly didn’t recognise. Bliss turned his head. “Shut up.”

“Signate,” said Bliss, and Ghastly’s heart leapt, and then fell down into his gut.

There was a pause, and then Signate said shortly, “Bliss.”

“Hopeless gave Bespoke something he wants you to have,” said Bliss, and this time when Signate answered he sounded surprised.

“He did?”

It took Ghastly a few seconds, but he managed to find his voice. “It’s a book to counter the rituals from _The Key of Solomon_.”

This time the pause was heavy, and it was broken by Signate’s short, incredulous laugh. “That bloody—I hate him. I really do. And I suppose now you all want me to use this book to close any portals Hanratty might come up with, is that right?”

“Can you?” Bliss asked.

“Alone? I don’t know. I’d have to see the book. With Renn or Peregrine’s help? Yes, I could.”

“Peregrine hasn’t woken up in like two days,” Valkyrie pointed out. She sounded admirably calm, for a fourteen-year-old, but there was an edge in her voice Ghastly didn’t like. “He didn’t even wake up when Sanguine and I were fighting in his room. What are the odds he’ll have the energy to close a portal after being tortured to open one to begin with?”

“Not very good,” Erskine said.

“Alright. So that means you have to come with us,” said Valkyrie.

Renn spluttered. “I have to—what? No!”

“It’s the only way to stop Hanratty.”

“Look,” said Renn, “I’m sorry about that Light guy, and this Peregrine guy, and leaving you behind with Sanguine, and I’ll take you to the farm, but I’m not hanging _around_. Only an idiot would hang around where there’s going to be fighting and—and probably killing and— _stuff_.”

“And you know what will be doing that killing?” Valkyrie asked, sounding colder than Ghastly had ever heard her. “First, it will be Hanratty and the Diablerie, who are all people like Sanguine. Then it will be a bunch of immortal gods who once enslaved the human race. And they won’t stop at the farm, either. They’ll leave the farm and kill everyone in Ireland, and then everyone in England, and then everyone else everywhere in the world.”

“So what’s that to me?” Renn demanded, but he sounded unsure. “You’re the heroes. You go out and stop them. Besides, if these gods or whatever get in, they won’t be able to catch me. I’m a Teleporter. I could probably even go to another dimension myself if I wanted.”

“And you’ll just leave everyone else to handle things so you don’t have to?” Valkyrie asked, with that little shake in her voice Ghastly knew meant she was holding back on her anger. “That’s what got you into this situation in the first place. If you do that, you’re no better than Hanratty. In fact, you’ll be _worse_. You know why? Because you know it’s the right thing to do and you’re turning your back on it anyway.”

“I don’t care about what you think of me,” said Renn furiously.

“Do you care about what Peep thinks of you, then? Because if she heard you turned around and walked away when you were the only person in the world who could help, what do you think she’d think?”

“I don’t need to listen to this.”

“If you leave now you’re nothing but a coward, and I’ll make sure Peep knows it.”

“And they’re glaring at each other,” Erskine murmured. Tanith caught Ghastly’s eye and grinned. “I’m going to kill Dex.”

The background noise shifted. Ghastly heard the Australian detective’s voice, very distant, and then very close and brisk. “Right. We’re officially up shit-creek. Peregrine never made it to his new room, and one of the guards assigned to him was found stuffed in a toilet stall.”

“Then Hanratty has everything he needs to open a portal for the Faceless Ones,” said Bliss.

“And we have everything we need to stop him,” Erskine pointed out.

“I didn’t say I was going yet,” Renn grumbled.

“But you’re still here,” said Valkyrie.

“Not because of _you_.”

“I know.”

“Renn can take us to the farm,” said Erskine, “and we can call you with the location. We’ll meet you there ASAP, and leave a message for the others so they know to catch us up once they get out from under Gordon’s house, and Dexter gets out from wherever the hell he is.” A pause. “Or maybe two or three or a dozen messages, so they know what they’re missing.”

“Very well,” said Bliss. “As soon as possible.”

Erskine disconnected the call and Ghastly was left staring down at his phone’s screen. He still felt uneasy, divided from the people he would have relied upon to watch his back, but relieved. Erskine was coming. For the first time in a while, Ghastly felt as though being with others might not be a burden.


	22. Enemies

_“What do we need him for?” Gallow demanded, watching the redheaded man lying on the floor of the van, nearly on top of the Teleporter’s legs. The redhead’s hands were bound behind his back, his bruised face pressed into metal. He had destroyed nearly half the Hollow Men they’d sent to the Sanctuary—on his own. The Grotesquery’s warded cage had taken care of the rest. It didn’t matter. They had more._

_“And why didn’t you tell us that was the plan?” Murder Rose asked sullenly from where she sat near the door, touching her cheek gingerly. Krav grunted his agreement from the driver’s seat._

_“If I’d told you, he would have known our plan was to capture him,” Batu said. “He’s a mind-reader far more powerful than any of the charlatans the Sanctuaries employ. We need him out of the way.” He smiled. “Besides, what better offering for our gods’ first host than the most powerful sorcerer in the world?”_

_“He is not the most powerful sorcerer in the world,” Gallow objected._

_“He could read the minds of everyone inside the Sanctuary at any given moment he was there,” Batu said. “If he wanted to, he could control nations. He doesn’t, because he’s a fool. Now his power will belong to the Faceless Ones.”_

_He kneeled by the mind-reader and pushed him onto his back, and with a scalpel carved a sigil into the skin of his forearm. The mind-reader’s eyes snapped open with a strangled gasp._

_“What’s that?” Murder Rose asked._

_“A sigil to summon the Faceless Ones to him,” Batu answered without looking up. He gazed down at the mind-reader as the man blinked away the drying blood in his eyes. He looked up at Batu, and it felt as though he looked straight into him. The mind-reader tried to turn his head toward Gallow and failed. He tried to speak but the words came out as mangled sounds and he gave up a moment later. Batu smiled. Serpine had done his work for him._

_“You could have ruined everything,” he said. “I was fortunate to secure the Elder Journals. Tome was not as discreet as he should have been.”_

_The mind-reader lay there and breathed, and looked up at him. Batu didn’t like that look. “If you pity me, I’ll kill you now,” he warned. “I need no one’s pity. I’ve proven myself far worthier of recognition than any faery.”_

_He rose and retook his seat. “Are we prepared?”_

_“Yes,” said Gallow grudgingly. “The Hollow Men will have already reached the farm, and we’ve plenty of weapons.”_

_“You’ve all branded yourselves?”_

_“We’re not stupid,” Murder Rose muttered. “Given the right information, we know what to do.” She glared down at the mind-reader and kicked him in the side, and laughed at his grunt of pain._

_Batu declined to correct her. The tattoo he’d given them was different to the one he’d carved into the mind-reader’s arm, but it would achieve the same result. His years studying on the Tír had served him well._

_“Then be ready,” he said as they bumped past the fence-line. “There will be enemies here, and you will need to defend your gods.”_


	23. Conversations with dead men

“It’s just down this turn,” said Echo-Gordon.

“Are you _sure_?” Rover demanded with a definite whine in his voice. “Saracen, is he sure?”

“Of course I’m sure,” said Echo-Gordon in a tone of affront. “Why wouldn’t I be?’

“Because you were sure last time and we ran into that thing with the fake flower-garlands and the tentacles.”

“I thought you liked tentacles, Rover,” said Saracen.

“Only if they came from a squid,” Rover grumbled, and then sighed wistfully. “I could really go for some calamari right now.”

“Normal-sized, or over-sized?”

“Rue, you should know by now that it’s not the size that counts …”

Anton tuned them both out in order to, very carefully, move around Echo-Gordon’s bend in the tunnel, keeping his gun upraised. He wasn’t especially fond of guns, but most of the creatures beneath Gordon’s house were far too dangerous to risk approaching too closely, and it was unlikely even the Gist would be effective against them.

Wordlessly Skulduggery took his flank, and between them they cleared the tunnel. It did not, however, open up into a cavern, and Echo-Gordon shrugged helplessly. “I might, of course, be just a tad off?”

“You should have drawn a map,” Rover said. “Why didn’t you draw a map?”

“I didn’t want people to be able to _find_ the thing!”

“I should pick Saracen’s pocket and dump you down here for good.”

“But you promised me you’d never leave me alone,” Echo-Gordon protested, passing straight through a pillar of rock to keep up. They were moving fast to avoid the creatures from sensing them—fast enough that Echo-Gordon had to jog.

“I’m inclined to take it back,” Rover grumbled. “How long have we been down here, anyway?”

“Two hours and sixteen minutes,” said Anton.

“It feels like an _eternity_.” Rover’s voice echoed, but dully. He cringed and eyed the ceiling, and then danced out from under a stalactite. “I mean, the _least_ Gordon could have done is drawn up a map and hidden it someplace for _us_ to find if we really, really needed it.”

“Oh, so it’s Gordon now,” Echo-Gordon grumbled. “It’s what _Gordon_ should have done, not what _I_ should have done. I don’t exist. I’m just a shadow. I’m a _ghost_.”

“We’ll all be ghosts if we don’t find the damned thing soon,” said Rover.

“Now you’re being just a tad overdramatic,” Echo-Gordon said.

“I’m not,” Rover objected. “We’ve been down here for over _two hours_. The longer you’re underground, the better your chances of being squashed by a thousand tons of rock! And when you revisit a _particular_ underground place, you make that chance even _greater_! I’ve been here before! I’ve been here before _twice_! I’m practically on death’s door! I’m practically—”

Anton put a hand on his shoulder and Rover took a breath, and then another. Echo-Gordon stared. “Larrikin, are you _claustrophobic_?”

“No,” Rover mumbled, “I’m just not really fond of being surrounded by nothing but rock.”

“But you’ve been down here before.”

“And it sucked both those times too.”

“Is there no way to tell the direction?” Anton asked Saracen.

Saracen shrugged helplessly. “I could, but I might need the magic for later.”

“That’s what you said earlier,” Rover complained. “I call shenanigans. You’ve never needed to conserve magic before.”

“No, I’ve never needed to tell you I’ve had to conserve magic before. Anytime there’s something I don’t know, what is it you think I’ve been doing?”

“Shenanigans.”

“We’re going in the right direction,” said Skulduggery. It was the most he’d said since they all left the Hotel together.

“How can you tell?” Rover demanded, and Skulduggery lifted a grimy chocolate wrapper he’d picked up from the ground.

“Oh, that’s my favourite brand,” said Echo-Gordon, beaming. “See? I told you I knew where I was going. In fact, I’m fairly sure I recognise that crystal, which means we can’t be all _that_ far away.”

“That depends on how many wrappers you dropped,” Anton said, and Echo-Gordon shrugged.

“I don’t recall dropping any at all, but Gordon might have left some bread-crumbs after I was imprinted into the Echo Stone.” He wilted. “I _am_ a ghost.”

“There, there.” Rover patted Echo-Gordon’s head, or patted the air above it to make it seem like he was. “You’re a very lovable ghost. Like how Casper was a friendly ghost? You’re Gordon the lovable ghost.”

Echo-Gordon glared. “That doesn’t make me feel any better.”

“Might we hurry our pace a tad?” Anton asked quietly, keeping an eye on the shadows behind them.

“Why? Are _you_ claustrophobic now?”

“No, but there are giant spiders behind us and I’d rather not allow them to catch up.”

Saracen shuddered. “Good call. Rover, I’ll give you a cookie if you hurry up.”

“I’m not the one lacking stamina,” Rover said and quickened his pace, the firelight in his hands sending shadows rushing across the stone walls. “Ew. Tunnels and spiders. I always hated that scene from _The_ _Lord of the Rings_.”

“Which direction?” Anton asked Echo-Gordon.

“There’s a junction ahead,” the Echo said, but he looked uncertain. “I’m _fairly_ sure we have to take the left one.”

The junction was more like a small cave with offshoots, and Echo-Gordon gave a little gleeful shout. “Yes! I recognise this place! It’s this tunnel over—”

“Gordon,” said Anton sharply as the little man hurried smoothly across the uneven floor, his feet vanishing into spikes and crevices. There came a rustle from above and a shimmering net fell on top of the Echo, and he yelped, thrashing. The sound of mandibles clicking echoed down the passage behind them.

“Have I mentioned I really hate that scene from _The Lord of the Rings_?” Rover said weakly, tossing fire at the web and watching it burn away without damaging the threads.

“Help!” Echo-Gordon squeaked. The web tightened. Skulduggery was aiming one of his pistols into the darkness of the ceiling, so Anton turned to the corridor. The shadows elongated across the passage surfaces, preceding the creatures behind.

“Gordon, return to the stone,” he ordered, his words punctuated by the bursting reverberation of Skulduggery’s shot.

“I can’t!” The Echo sounded panicked. “I’m magic! The web’s got me!”

“I’ve got him,” said Saracen, jumping down off the ledge and drawing his short-sword, “so long as you keep them off _me_.”

The first of the spiders in the tunnel showed its ugly head, and Anton blew it off. The second and third came more quickly, and he dispatched them too. He heard the click of Skulduggery’s pistol-hammer, and Rover’s footsteps as he darted across the cave to clear the passage for which they were aiming. Then spiders flooded the area and Anton switched to rapid-fire, and every other sound was overwhelmed by the echo of his rifle.

“Anton!” Rover hollered, and the tunnel was plugged with bodies, so Anton turned and ran for the others, glancing overhead. He couldn’t see anything in the darkness, but nothing fell on him as he ducked into the tunnel.

“The sudden noise scared them,” said Skulduggery. “But that won’t last.”

“Gordon?”

Saracen patted his pocket, trying to shake spider-web off his sleeve as he walked. “Back in the stone. That web was sapping his magic.” He made to pick the web off with his fingers, but Anton caught his hand and pulled his jacket off his shoulders, and kicked it away. “Oy,” Saracen protested. “I’ll get cold!”

“You’ll get all your magic sapped by stupid magical spider-webs,” said Rover with a grumble.

Saracen paused. “Oh. Right.” He shivered as they passed another tunnel, angled back where they’d come. “I really hate this cave. I’ve never even _been_ in this cave before, and I really, really hate it. Rover, you have all my respect for coming back twice over. Or maybe you’re just insane. I’m not sure.”

Skulduggery caught Anton’s eye and tilted his head forward, to where the tunnel opened up.

“I just want to get the bloody Sceptre and _leave_ ,” Rover whined.

“Shush,” said Anton.

“But—”

“There’s something ahead of us.”

Rover shut up and they wordlessly spread out to whatever outcroppings in the tunnel offered any cover. Saracen left a chalk arrow on the wall. Skulduggery sent a thin presence of air ahead, and nothing happened. He picked up a stone and tossed it, and it landed with a clatter on the floor. Something too quick to see shot out from the tunnel, and there was a puff of dust and grind of stone. The thing withdrew, and when the dust settled there was a new, very large scrape of stone missing from the tunnel wall.

_‘Sound?’_ Saracen signed, looking pale. Skulduggery nodded, and Saracen grimaced.

Rover moved past the tunnel first, light-footed and quick in a way only Rover could be. Anton and Skulduggery glanced at Saracen. He heaved a very quiet sigh and tiptoed to the intersection, and then stopped, and took another deep, slow breath.

_‘Hurry up,’_ Rover signed.

_‘I’m not a cat like you,’_ Saracen signed back emphatically. _‘I can’t sneak silently. I’ll make noise. I’ll get eaten. I’ll—’_

Skulduggery lifted his hands and shoved him across with a blast of air. Saracen yelped and the creature shot out and collided with the far wall, and when it withdrew all they could see was dust. Skulduggery glided his fingers through the air and a gentle gust cleared the area until they could see Rover supporting Saracen. When Saracen saw them looking he glared and gave them a very rude gesture. Skulduggery shrugged and stepped across with the inhuman grace of the unrestrained dead. Anton followed last, heavier than the others but just as quiet.

_‘I hate you all,’_ Saracen mouthed, and then took the lead so he could deliberately avoid looking at them.

“But we love you,” said Rover, but lacking his usual energy. He glanced nervously up the passage, peering along the walls. “At least if there’s another one it’ll eat you first.”

Saracen stopped, turned and glared, waiting for them to catch up before he continued down the tunnel. “We have to be getting close by now.”

“How can you tell?” Rover asked, just a touch plaintively, but enough that Saracen’s face softened as he winked and tapped his nose.

“I just know.”

“So much for ‘conserving your magic’. I knew it was just a front. I knew it—”

Anton let them take the lead, Rover with his hands out to feel the air so they didn’t accidentally run into another hidden creature. Instead Anton dropped back to walk beside Skulduggery, and for a long time neither of them said anything. In fact, unless it happened to include important information, they hadn’t said two words to each other all afternoon. The silence would have been awkward if the cause weren’t so horrific. Either way, it was far too heavy a burden to bear, yet Anton didn’t know how to break it and knew Skulduggery wasn’t inclined to.

Anton wasn’t the sort of man who held grudges. He just wasn’t used to feeling so deeply hurt. Hurt was a fleeting thing. It came, it passed. Lingering only made it fester. No one he wanted to keep had ever dared to hurt him so deeply before. Nor was he prepared to demean Ghastly’s betrayal by acting as though Skulduggery’s sins were capable of being dismissed so lightly.

It was the fact that Skulduggery accepted their treatment which made the situation so difficult. The fact that he had spent a century owning his crimes, even if not owning up to them to others. Anton didn’t like things being difficult due to emotions. He knew first-hand how emotions could complicate matters, and he certainly wasn’t going to let it stop him from saying what needed to be said. It was just that he wasn’t sure what _did_ need to be said.

He started off with, “You’re an idiot.”

Skulduggery didn’t answer for so long that Anton was almost surprised when he did. “I am aware of that, yes.”

“You’re also a fool,” said Anton.

Skulduggery nodded. “That too.”

“Then you can bear through hearing it again,” said Anton, “and again, and as many times as those who have the right to say it choose to.”

“I’m not arguing.”

“You’re being dismissive.”

“Anton—”

“You’re being dismissive,” Anton repeated, cutting him off, “because you think it will make things easier if you accept our judgement. It doesn’t.” Skulduggery didn’t answer, so Anton went on. “For a man so skilled in observation, you are sadly blind. You might at least oblige us with removing yourself from the veil of your own bias.”

“I’m afraid you’ve lost me,” Skulduggery said, very carefully.

Anton looked at him and sighed. “Skulduggery, you’re reacting as if we’re people who would _want_ to condemn you. We’re not. That’s what makes this so difficult. You’re making it harder by treating us as though our judgement is foregone.”

“Isn’t it?” Skulduggery asked.

“No,” said Anton, “and you demean us by assuming so. You have made far too many assumptions. That is why we’re in the situation we are.”

There came a scuffle from ahead and they stopped. Skulduggery tested the air. “Larrikin?”

“All good,” Rover called back, sounding a tad disgruntled. “Take your time.” And then, more quietly but still audible, “You didn’t have to stand on my _foot_.”

Skulduggery looked at Anton. Anton looked back. For a few seconds they regarded each other, with only the quiet, dull drift of Rover and Saracen whispering at each other to be heard in the distance.

“I didn’t want to impress anything upon you unduly,” said Skulduggery finally.

“Hence your being a fool,” Anton answered evenly. His chest felt hot. It had felt hot for six months now. It wasn’t the first time he’d endured it for an extension of time, but it was never precisely comfortable. On this occasion, the feeling was rather bitterer than it had been previously. “You should have come to me.”

Skulduggery’s head moved just a fraction, enough that Anton knew the skeleton wasn’t looking at him anymore.

“You should have come to me,” Anton repeated, “because I am the one person who would understand.”

That was why he felt hurt. It had taken him a long time just to realise what it was: the simple fact that he had the benefit of experience of which Skulduggery had willingly neglected to take advantage.

Skulduggery gazed at the tunnel wall and didn’t answer.

“I don’t blame you, necessarily, for not approaching me beforehand,” Anton continued. “It is difficult to approach others when you can see no paths out of your dark place.” He had been fortunate, in that regard. Rover had been present and able to prevent a tragedy in much the same way the Dead Men had not where Skulduggery was concerned. Even more fortunate that he hadn’t needed to speak of it. “But you should have come to me after the fact.”

“Am I allowed to defend myself?” Skulduggery asked.

“You may.”

“After what I did to Mistress Aoife, I expected you to have torn me limb from limb. If anyone could have killed me, you could have.”

The heat in Anton’s chest intensified. He ignored it. “Then I am surprised you didn’t come to me at all.”

None of them mentioned Skulduggery’s occasional but persistent lack of care regarding his own life very often, but after the day he jumped off a waterfall ‘just to see what would happen’, they all kept a closer eye on him. If Skulduggery had truly wanted to die after he regained his sanity, Anton was indeed surprised he didn’t pursue all potential avenues of doing so.

“If I was going to die, I wasn’t going to put any of you in a position where you would have had to deal with it.”

“You already have,” said Anton. “You could hardly have helped it, unless you chose to leave altogether—again.”

“Ah,” said Skulduggery, nodding. “Dexter mentioned this. Responsibility by association.”

“Quite,” said Anton, “and I should hit you for assuming that I would have lost control, but I won’t.”

“Thank you.”

“Have you forgotten who was responsible for the collateral damage after every battle which included my Gist?”

“That’s different,” Skulduggery began.

“It’s no such thing,” Anton cut him off, and his voice carried enough to interrupt Rover and Saracen’s indiscernible conversation ahead. Anton waited for them to continue before he did. “My Gist is as much a part of me as your darkness is of you. It is ever-present, wishing an outlet, and when I release it, it is with the knowledge and intent that others will suffer. Every time I used it, people died who didn’t need to. And every one of those I killed unnecessarily were mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, lovers belonging to someone.”

“I’m failing to see your point,” said Skulduggery.

“If you hadn’t killed Mistress Aoife, would you have come to me for help?”

For a moment there was quiet. Anton let Skulduggery think, and listened to Rover’s drifting complaints.

“Probably,” Skulduggery admitted at last. “I wouldn’t have had reason to think you’d react quite so badly, and you _are_ the person who would most understand.”

“And there lies your faulty thinking,” said Anton. “I have missed Mistress Aoife, but everyone is the same in death. All those whom I’ve killed had loved ones of their own. The death of one I love, ultimately, is no different from the death of someone whom I do not. I have not forgotten this. I cannot forget this. I cannot allow myself such a lapse or I will begin to make exceptions, and that way lies the madness of the Gist.”

“I can’t be that objective,” Skulduggery said.

“You should have trusted that I would be.”

They looked at each other in the darkness of the tunnel.

“I don’t understand,” Skulduggery said.

“What don’t you understand?”

“Why most of you seem to be more hurt by the fact that I didn’t trust you with the secret than because of what I did.”

“You don’t need to understand,” said Anton, turning to resume his walk down the tunnel. “You just need to allow us our emotions without assuming them for us, and then accept what they are.”

Neither of them spoke as they joined the others. Rover looked up. “All done? We’ve got a tad of a problem.” He pointed at the crevasse breaking the passage before them. “Looks like you’ll get to have a fling with my lover again, Skulduggery.”

“I object,” Saracen muttered.

“Okay, then you can have a fling with _me_.”

“I object to that too.”

“Then you can stay here alone,” Anton said, moving past him and gazing down into the abyss. It bisected the ceiling and the two sides had, sometime in the past, fallen against one another to hold up the roof; but the base widened, broader and broader, until the place where it interrupted the tunnel was nearly ten feet wide. They would need Elemental aid. Anton nodded briskly and stepped back, and slung his rifle over his shoulder. “Skulduggery, if you please.”

Skulduggery tilted his head. “Me? Not Rover?”

“Rover will bash me into the ceiling,” said Anton.

“I would not,” Rover protested.

“You would, because you _can_. Skulduggery.” Anton stepped off the edge and felt Skulduggery’s air at his back a moment later, sending him sailing across the gap so that his feet set lightly on the other side. He made space for the others, but kept his attention on the tunnel before them. Within a few moments he sensed them at his back, accompanied by Saracen’s grumbling, and moved forward.

The tunnel ran forward for another fifty feet and then cut off, quite abruptly, at a wall. Anton regarded it for a moment and then tilted the light on his rifle upward, and then downward, and then to either side.

“Here,” said Skulduggery, standing at a spit of darkness in the wall to the left. He left a chalk mark on the wall. “It’s narrow. Saracen might have trouble.”

“Now you’re just being mean.”

“He’s right,” said Anton, examining the split. “Ghastly would never have fit. Nor would Gordon. We must have taken a wrong turn.”

“Don’t say we have to go back,” said Rover.

“We don’t have to go back,” said Anton.

“I see a chest,” Skulduggery murmured, looking through the crack.

“Of course you do,” Rover told him. “Anton’s right in front of you.”

They both turned to look at him. “A wooden chest,” Skulduggery clarified.

“Now you’re insulting Anton.”

Skulduggery sighed. “I see a wooden, iron-bound chest which has a lock on it, and which most likely contains the Sceptre.”

Rover perked up. “Why didn’t you say so? Budge over.” He pushed past them both and wriggled easily through the split, momentarily blocking off their view. Then his silhouette vanished and there was a pause as he cleared the room before his grinning face reappeared. “What’s taking you so long? Hurry up, slowpokes.”

Anton and Skulduggery exchanged longsuffering glances. Skulduggery’s head twitched slightly as if the familiarity were unexpected, but Anton ignored the reaction and fit himself into the crack with more difficulty than Rover had managed. He wasn’t as slight as Rover, and no one was as thin as Skulduggery, but Anton was still going to have an easier time of it than Saracen. He stepped out and cleared the room with his rifle. There were two tunnel entrances, and one large shadow near the ceiling which indicated some sort of ledge or overhang. And, of course, the chest.

He heard a grunt behind him, and Rover’s laugh.

“I hate you,” Saracen said through gritted teeth.

“Oh, don’t be like that,” Rover said boisterously, now that their objective was in sight and they at least had a marked exit. Barring the necessity of passing back through inconveniences, it shouldn’t take long to actually escape from the warren. “At least you’re not Ghastly. Ghastly would have been left behind.”

“I _wish_ I’d been left behind. I wish I’d been left behind on the surface.”

“Stop wriggling, you’re going to take off skin. Here, let me. Skulduggery, when I tell you—push. And make it good, since it’s probably the only action you’ve had in two centuries.”

“I hate you both,” said Saracen with a grunt. Anton listened but didn’t look around as Rover cajoled Saracen into shifting this way, that way, helping him along with a thin sheet of slippery air between him and the stone.

“Push, Skulduggery, push!” Rover cried.

“I agree with Saracen,” Anton heard Skulduggery mutter, and then Saracen yelped and Anton heard Rover catch him.

“Skulduggery, you’ve had a Saracen,” Rover said with far too much glee to be appropriate for any circumstance.

“I _really_ hate you,” Saracen said, and shoved him back into Anton’s line of sight.

“I’m too lovable to be hated,” Rover protested, dancing back and across to the chest, and then stopping halfway. “Oh, right. Any booby-traps?”

“Gordon didn’t mention any,” said Skulduggery, stepping out of the split and dusting off his suit. “All it should take is the key. Which makes sense, really. Just surviving the tunnels is a feat in and of itself.”

“Right. Who has the key, again?”

Skulduggery produced the key from his coat and strode forward. The others gathered around him as he approached the chest, though Anton kept his attention divided. One never knew what might sneak up on them. Skulduggery inserted the key into the slot on the chest, and with a clunk it opened, and Skulduggery pushed up the lid.

“Oh dear,” he said. Saracen cursed. Rover let out a whine exactly like an injured puppy. Anton glanced over his shoulder to look into the chest.

It was empty.

“But how?” Rover kicked the chest.

“Batu,” said Anton. “Somehow.”

“Echo-Gordon said there had been a break-in the other day,” Skulduggery said quietly. “He had been sleeping at the time. He only knew after Desmond woke him up. Batu must have stolen the key and replaced it afterward, and broken the windows to make the police believe it was some delinquents.”

“But how did he _know_?” Rover demanded. “About the key, about where it was buried, about any of it?”

“I don’t know,” Skulduggery admitted. “Yet.”

“Now what?” Saracen asked dispiritedly.

Skulduggery closed the lid with a soft thud and took the key back. “Now we go back and hope the battle hasn’t already started.”


	24. The battle of Aranmore

Something exploded outside and Valkyrie flinched, huddling further down against the farmhouse wall. Fletcher was across from her, looking very pale. He had tiny freckles, she noticed absently. Every now and then one of the noises from outside would make him flinch, as if he was resisting Teleporting away. She hoped he didn’t. She wasn’t sure if he’d come back if he did.

“Is it always like this?” he asked shakily. His knuckles were white where he clutched the book Signate had shoved into his hands and ordered him to guard at all costs.

“I don’t know,” Valkyrie said. “I’m not supposed to be involved in this part.” She wanted to add that it was his fault she was there at all, but didn’t, even though it was true. He’d refused to ‘run headlong into danger while that girl got to stay behind’.

Erskine had wanted to argue—so badly. Valkyrie had seen that expression before, the way his whole jaw clenched with tension because he had to swallow a retort. There hadn’t been time, and they knew it. She hadn’t felt slighted when he ordered her to take Renn out of the battle and somewhere safe-ish. She hadn’t even minded when Erskine hugged her.

Actually, and she wasn’t about to tell Fletcher this, she’d wished the hug could have lasted a lot longer.

Valkyrie leaned up to peer out the window and saw Murder Rose toss something at Erskine and Tanith. Tanith shouted and flipped away, but Erskine threw up his hands and the explosion struck his wall of air with a force that split the ground. The farmhouse shuddered and the windows cracked, and Valkyrie ducked her head as the glass fell over her.

“What was that?” Fletcher demanded.

“They have grenades,” Valkyrie said breathlessly. The sound of gunfire filled the air. “And machine-guns.”

She risked another peek out. Digger climbed out of a crack in the ground, holding her head and listing to the side. The grenade’s force must have hit her even underground. Krav shot a spray of bullets at her, but Ghastly yanked the air and Digger hit the ground behind his van, and then sat up unsteadily. The van’s fourth wheel burst. Its side was riddled with holes, but at least it was still mostly intact.

If she strained, Valkyrie could see Peregrine past the field of battle, in the middle of a circle. There was a man behind him, holding him upright, and a shadow of something dark on his hospital shirt. Valkyrie suspected it was blood. Hopeless was lying slumped nearby, but Valkyrie couldn’t tell if he was hurt or not. He wasn’t even moving.

“Um,” said Fletcher, and Valkyrie turned to see him staring out a window on the other side of the house. “What are those?”

Valkyrie crawled over and looked, and saw Bliss fighting Gallow around the corner of the house. But on the other side the Cleavers were mingled with Hollow Men, and the Hollow Men were advancing. A lot of them had gotten past the Cleaver’s line and were making their way toward the farmhouse. Valkyrie’s stomach lurched. The house was the only real bit of cover they had. They couldn’t afford to lose it.

“Help me with this,” she ordered, getting up to move the lopsided wardrobe in front of the door.

“What?” Fletcher stared. “We should get out of here.”

“We can’t,” said Valkyrie. “We need the farmhouse as cover for Hopeless and Peregrine.”

“Why can’t I just Teleport in and—”

“Because they have sigils up to trap a Teleporter. Hanratty’s ready for you.” Valkyrie peeked out the door. The Hollow Men were getting closer. “Now hurry up and help me—”

She heard the gunshots in the same moment something struck her in the back and slammed her into the wall. Her legs turned to jelly and all the air left her chest, and she slid down to the floor. Part of her was glad she’d fallen, because her limbs felt numb with shock and she could hear glass shattering and bullets impacting the walls.

She couldn’t move. She couldn’t breathe. She couldn’t even hear Renn, and didn’t know if he was still there.

Then the haze was brushed away by a surge of adrenaline and Valkyrie got her hands under her, and managed to draw in a gasping breath. Her back ached, and when she moved she felt glass and debris roll off her. None of it had gotten through, and she felt a surge of pure gratitude that Erskine had insisted Renn take her back to Corrival’s flat to change before they left the Tír.

She pushed herself upright but kept low. Renn was gone. All the windows were shattered, and the walls were full of holes. She could hear fighting outside, and then Tanith slammed through the door and hit the floor on her back.

Valkyrie scrambled to her feet and struck Murder Rose’s laughing face with a fist of air, and slammed the door shut. Tanith rolled over with a groan and touched it, and whispered, “Withstand.” Valkyrie helped her up, but after a couple of steps Tanith steadied and moved quickly toward the other door and each of the windows, using magic on the ones that still had any glass in them. “Where’s Renn?”

“I don’t know,” Valkyrie said angrily. “Tanith, the Hollow Men—”

“We’ve got worse things to worry about,” said Tanith as Murder Rose tossed a jacket over a sill and shimmied through one of the broken windows. Tanith reacted first, lunging with her sword, but Murder Rose blocked it and brought up her machine-gun. Valkyrie threw herself behind a cabinet and Tanith leapt up to the ceiling, and bullets sprayed the wall behind them while Murder Rose laughed. The whole house pounded with the force of the gunfire.

Suddenly her laughter cut off with a thud and a cry of pain, and the shooting stopped. The pounding didn’t. Valkyrie peeked around the cabinet and saw Murder Rose on her knees, steadying herself on a hand and looking dazed. Tanith dropped but Murder Rose managed to catch her sword on the gun, and then Fletcher reappeared nearby. He looked terrified, but he was holding a baseball bat ready to swing, and when Murder Rose whirled to block him Tanith broke away. She twisted her sword, aiming for Murder Rose’s back, and Murder Rose sprang into a backflip that put her closer by the wall.

She staggered and Valkyrie used the air to punch her again, but the blow wasn’t as strong as she meant it to be. Tanith thrust with her sword. Murder Rose blocked it on her gun, and for a moment they were in a deadlock. The pounding turned into a crunch, and Valkyrie whirled around as the first Hollow Man battered down Tanith’s reinforced door. When she looked back toward Tanith she was gone and Murder Rose was slumped against the wall. She looked up and sneered at Valkyrie, and raised the machine-gun, and then someone seized her arm and she was surrounded by trees instead.

Valkyrie jerked away and glanced around, and spotted the farmhouse across the field. They were on the other side of the battle. Tanith looked angry, and was already striding out of the trees, but Fletcher hovered by Valkyrie’s shoulder with the baseball-bat in one hand and the book stuck into the waist of his jeans, looking lost.

“What do we do now?” he asked.

Valkyrie looked around the trees toward the circle, and her heart skipped a beat. Hopeless had vanished, and Hanratty was holding his head, looking furious as he staggered toward where Peregrine was trying to crawl away. The Teleporter kept flickering and appearing a foot further along, but his face was almost grey and he clearly didn’t have the strength to Teleport anywhere safe. Hanratty caught up with him within a few seconds and dragged him back.

“Take me back to the farmhouse,” she ordered Fletcher.

His eyes widened. “But—”

“Signate has Descry and is taking him to the farmhouse. Take me back _now_.”

Fletcher looked like he wanted to object, but he took Valkyrie’s arm and a moment later they were inside the farmhouse, but in the broken-down kitchen instead of the living-room. Valkyrie motioned him to be quiet and used the mirror in her pocket to see around the jamb. She saw Murder Rose’s back as she stalked out of the building, and some of the Hollow Men follow through the hole they’d made.

Two of them stayed, setting their iron fists on the floor like they weren’t planning to move in a long time. Valkyrie wouldn’t have minded, except that in the corner she saw the air ripple and Creyfon come into view, propping up Hopeless with an arm around his back. The Shunter looked wary but tired, and his face was lined. The Hollow Men were bound to see them any moment.

Valkyrie pulled back and turned around, hoping Fletcher was still there. He was, clutching the baseball-bat. “Hopeless and Signate are in there,” she said. “Get them out and then come get me.”

She shoved him toward the door and picked up a long piece of broken timber, and stepped through herself. Her heart pounded and her legs felt shaky, but when the nearest Hollow Man turned around she threw the timber like a javelin, pointy-end first. It impaled the Hollow Man and it deflated in a rush of fetid air, and the second Hollow Man swung its heavy fist at her. Valkyrie ducked and rolled away from it, and then Fletcher was behind her and grabbed her shoulder, and they were back in the woods.

“Thanks,” said Signate as she fell on her knees beside Descry. Her whole body was shaking and the nerves made her want to hurl, but she helped him sit up. His arms were still bound behind his back.

“I don’t have a knife,” she said.

“I do,” said Signate. He cut Descry’s restraints just as there was a roar from the field.

“Um,” said Fletcher, “there’s something going on with the portal … thing.”

Descry grunted. Valkyrie looked. The symbols around the circle glowed and red smoke rose from them, and mixed with the black smoke that rose from the circle. They collected into a cloud that swirled around the circle’s perimeter, roaring like a hurricane.

“Is that bad?” she asked. Signate didn’t answer, but she heard a choking noise and when she looked over she saw him staring at the circle, frozen and breathing too fast. “Signate?” He didn’t answer, but Descry sat up and slapped Signate across the face. The Shunter jerked and fell on his hands, and took huge gulping breaths, trembling violently. He gagged and Descry supported him as he threw up.

Valkyrie heard a shout from the field and looked toward the battle. The Hollow Men had passed the farmhouse. Even with the cover of the equipment and the sheds, Erskine’s team was having trouble holding them at bay. Tanith was back in the fray, helping Ghastly clear the area around a tractor. Ghastly’s van was nearly in pieces and Digger had retreated to take potshots at the Hollow Men from a tractor. Mr Bliss was wading toward the circle, closer to the trees than the others. The Cleavers were covering him, but even with their help the field was nearly overwhelmed with Hollow Men.

There came a horn and Rover’s orange hybrid shot over the hill through the gates, and slammed into one of the Hollow Men. The car bucked as it struck the leaden feet, bouncing wildly, but whoever was driving somehow stopped it from rolling or fishtailing and it shot forward and slammed into another Hollow Man. The Hollow Man’s body split and its fists flew out and ripped through other Hollow Men, but this time the car’s front wheels blew.

The car pulled up sideways and Valkyrie saw the barrel of a rifle through an open window, and within a few seconds the lines of Hollow Men were so much ragged weighed-down paper. Rover burst out of the passenger seat and threw fire at Krav, and Krav roared and flung off his jacket, and took cover behind a shed. Valkyrie found herself grinning with pure relief as Anton, Skulduggery and Saracen bundled out of the car and joined the fight. The Diablerie faltered. The Hollow Men became scrap paper.

“You took your time!” Erskine shouted. “Where’s the Sceptre?”

“Gone,” Anton answered over the sound of fire roaring, and Valkyrie’s stomach flipped. Erskine was talking but she couldn’t hear the words, and suspected they were words the Dead Men tried not to use around her. Someone started screaming but Valkyrie couldn’t tell who it was, and after a moment she realised it was Peregrine. When she looked around the trees she saw a yellow light appear. It got brighter, and bigger. It was growing fast. The portal.

Bliss saw it, but the Hollow Men were focussed on him and his progress had come nearly to a standstill. He had to climb over their fallen leaden limbs just to advance a foot. The Dead Men were pushing the Diablerie back, but there were enough Hollow Men attacking them to make it difficult and Anton couldn’t use his machine-gun without risking hitting the others.

Valkyrie turned around to Descry, who still had one hand on Signate’s back. The Shunter looked pale and shaken.

“What do we do?” Valkyrie asked. Her voice wavered.

Descry looked up at her, his pupils wider than they should have been. He smiled at her reassuringly and Valkyrie was ashamed to admit how relieved she felt that someone was so confident. He made sure Signate could still sit up, then took the book from Fletcher and gave it to Valkyrie. He signed, _‘Phone?’_

“Um …” Valkyrie fumbled for her phone and held it out, and Descry made the sign for Dexter’s name and pointed to Fletcher.

“What?” Fletcher glanced between them, looking confused. “What about me?”

“Descry wants you to have Fletcher’s phone number?” Valkyrie said, forming the sentence as a question as she glanced at Descry. He nodded, and then signed Dexter’s name again. “And wants you to go get him?”

Descry nodded again, and smiled.

Valkyrie frowned. “Don’t we need Renn to close the portal? Shouldn’t he be doing that _now_?”

“It’s too late for that,” Signate croaked. “It’s too late.”

“Then what’s the point in the—” Valkyrie took a deep breath. They had said the book could stop portals. If they still wanted the book, maybe it would still be useful. Either way, now wasn’t the time to ask questions. She found Dexter’s name in her phonebook. “Okay. Fletcher, take down this number. You’re going back to the Tír to get Dex and you might need it.”

“I am?” Fletcher asked shakily, sounding startled and relieved at once.

“Yes,” said Valkyrie firmly, holding up her phone so Fletcher could read the number. “And then you’re coming back, as quickly as you can.”

“But I don’t know where Vex is!” Fletcher objected. He punched in the number anyway.

“Then go to the precinct and ask that group Digger sent with him,” said Valkyrie impatiently, “or ring and see if he answers. Just _go_.” He vanished. Valkyrie clutched the book close then turned to Descry. “Now what?”

Descry signed something at Signate, but Valkyrie didn’t catch what it was. She still didn’t know enough to be fluent in sign-language, even after helping her mother.

“I don’t know if I can,” said Signate shakily. Descry nodded and took off a bloody and badly-wrapped bandage around the arm he was favouring. Valkyrie stared at the sigil underneath. It was carved into his flesh, very deeply, and even though parts of it had clotted other parts were still seeping blood. Signate went so grey he looked like he might faint, but didn’t. “Give me a minute.”

He got to his feet and staggered to the edge of the trees, and vanished. It looked like he’d just stepped out of reality.

“What is that?” Valkyrie asked. Her stomach rolled and she looked away from the wound on Descry’s arm.

Descry gave her a very weary smile and spelled out _‘Faceless.’_

“What about them?”

_‘Attract.’_ He pointed at the sigil and then pressed the bandage over it. His mouth tightened, and it was only then that Valkyrie noticed how deep the lines around his eyes were.

“It’s to bring the Faceless Ones to you?”

He nodded.

“Oh.” She waved the book. “What about this?”

He opened the cover and pointed at the first page, his finger tracing the line ‘summon a demon’, and then ‘reverse’. Valkyrie frowned. “I don’t—wait. So it’s not going to stop a portal from opening, but it’ll force them out of our dimension?”

Descry smiled his approval of her logic. Valkyrie gave him a wobbly grin and looked away to watch the battle.She saw Erskine vanish, and Rover’s startled expression as he whirled. Anton shouted something and Rover ducked behind a shed before he got shot by Gallow.

“Signate’s got Erskine,” she said. She still felt sick, but as long as she didn’t look at Descry’s arm she thought she’d be okay. “It won’t be much longer. It’ll be—”

She turned and something flew out of the gate and it caught in her mind. A shockwave hit the trees and she was thrown back. Her thoughts went quiet.

The damp grass beneath her hands. The breeze, stirred to wind overhead. The world, dulled and deadened.

Another shockwave hit the trees. And another.

Her mouth was dry and her head was pounding. She struggling to push herself up, and someone else was there. She looked up at the redheaded man. He looked like he was in pain, but he tried to smile at her. He lifted his fingers and moved them in shapes that formed words. A word.

‘ _Valkyrie.’_

She looked away to push herself upright and he touched her face, made her look at his hand.

_‘Valkyrie.’_

Sign-language. Sign-language from—

“Descry,” she said, and he nodded. Her thoughts sharpened, and it hurt, and she turned to glance behind her. “What—”

He put his hand on her cheek and turned her head away, tapping her eyes and shaking his head. His face suddenly twisted and he bent over his arm, and she saw the sigil pulsing with a red glow. Valkyrie reached out to make sure he didn’t fall over, and then they weren’t alone.

“Let me see it,” said Erskine, kneeled beside Descry and taking his arm.

“They’re here,” said Signate, his voice cracking. He was shaking. “They’re here.”

“They’ll be _right_ here if you don’t help me,” Erskine said sharply. “Creyfon, hold him down. Valkyrie, sit on his legs.”

“Let me,” said Bliss, staggering into the woods. His eyes were a little unfocussed and he was bleeding from one lip. He wiped his chin and kneeled behind Descry, and looped one arm around his chest to pull him tight up against his body. “Where’s the book?”

“Here,” said Valkyrie, dropping it on the grass and then sitting on Descry’s legs. Her hands were trembling, she noticed. It was the only thing she could notice before her ears popped, and she heard Signate groan.

“Ready?” Erskine asked, and then he pressed his hand over the uncovered wound and Valkyrie saw the glow of heat mingle with the glow of the sigil. Descry screamed and bucked, and almost threw Valkyrie off, but Bliss effortlessly held him steady. Valkyrie clung to Hopeless’s knees, and it seemed like forever before he stilled again with a sobbing breath.

“Everyone look away,” said Signate in a scratchy voice, and Valkyrie turned her back on the field. Goosebumps rippled across her skin and she felt her heart slamming against her chest.

“Leave me alone!” she heard someone shouting, a man, sounding as terrified as she felt. Part of her wanted to look, but she focussed on the drip of water over Descry’s arm as Erskine conjured a steady trickle over the burn. There was a rush and she heard the man behind them shriek. The pressure popped in her ears again and she blinked. Her eyes gradually focussed.

She saw Descry’s pupils expand, but slowly, like he was being dragged and couldn’t stop it. He started to scream, awful ragged screams with hardly any air between them. He wrenched his arm out of Erskine’s grasp and clawed at his head, screaming and writhing, and Valkyrie put all her weight on his knees to try and hold him down. Erskine tried to grab his wrists. Bliss grunted and pulled his other arm across Descry’s throat, and held him tightly, and then Descry’s eyes rolled back in his head and he fell limp. His eyelids still flickered and his body twitched violently, and he had blood all over his face where he’d broken skin, but at least now he was quiet.

Valkyrie risked a glance behind. She saw Gruesome Krav’s face finish melting together and the Faceless One looked in their direction, and Valkyrie went still. She hardly dared to breathe. She didn’t think any of them dared to breathe.

The Faceless One turned and moved toward the field.


	25. From all sides

Dexter punched the door and regretted it almost instantly. He took a deep breath. “This is no time to panic,” he said out loud, and then muttered, “even though it’s the _perfect_ time to panic.”

He checked his phone’s clock. It was afternoon. He’d been here for a few hours, but it seemed like longer. Dexter took another breath and looked around the room again. It looked like an ordinary office, the sort owned by a person who overworked and thus had a cot in the corner. There were two computers: a laptop and a sigil-powered dash. The desk was covered with neat stacks of paperwork, or it had been before Dexter had rummaged through it. Right now, the only thing there was an object wrapped in cloth which Dexter didn’t particularly want to touch.

Like everywhere else in the Tír, the office was lit with sigils. Unlike most places in the Tír, or at least most public places, it was underwater. The shadows of the waves rippled across the desk and the cabinets, and every now and then a fish’s silhouette would cruise past. No indication of a city. The office faced the ocean, not into the Tír.

_I should have brought the team for backup,_ Dexter thought bitterly. It had been a hard choice and Dexter had known it was stupid to send them away, but he couldn’t risk more people seeing the Elder Journals than already had. He threw a glare toward the ashy remains of the chips he’d managed to hunt down, and the ragged pieces of the disc.

There had been four of them, Bev said. Four electronic copies of the journals, and the CD they couldn’t pinpoint. Dexter had found all the chips, and the original CD.

He’d also found Batu.

The problem was that he hadn’t been _expecting_ to find Batu, just as much as Batu hadn’t been expecting himself to be found. Unfortunately, Batu had been better prepared for discovery than Dexter had been to be discoverer. Which was why Dexter was now trapped underwater in a glass office with the airlock withdrawn.

If he peered around the window he could just see the passage that was meant to extend and attach to the room, but that was utterly useless. He didn’t know what the office was meant for. Maybe it had been built for observation. Maybe it had been built for containment. Even an Elemental would have trouble escaping from this kind of room. Most of them didn’t bother much with water manipulation, and it was deep enough for the pressure to be a problem.

Dexter looked at his phone again, at the distinct lack of bars available underwater, and sighed. He glanced up and blinked, and peered closer through the window. There was movement through the windows in the other hallway. That was either a very good thing or a very bad thing.

“You alright there Vex, or d’you need a hand?”

Bev’s voice coming from behind him made him jump and whirl, but no one was there. He glanced around, moving back into the room.

“Look at the door.”

He looked at the door, and spotted the glowing sigil, and laughed with pure relief as he moved toward it.

“In case you don’t know what you’re looking at, put your hand on the sigil before you talk.”

He put his hand on the sigil. “You’re a goddess.”

“And you're a bloody great idiot. You’re also lucky I saved a copy of that map I gave you.”

“I’ll give you whatever you want later. Right now, get me out of here. Diablerie’s probably already started the endgame of their plans for world domination.”

“We know,” said Aria. “Ravel and your apprentice have already gone back to Ireland. Digger went with. They ordered us to find you. You didn’t make it easy.”

“Batu didn’t make it easy,” Dexter muttered, glancing around the room and shuddering. He’d never exactly been claustrophobic, but he would be very pleased to not see the ocean from its underside for a good long while.

“He broke the door controls. Bev’s seeing if she can get it op—”

Her words cut off halfway and segued into Bev’s voice. “I can’t get it open.”

Dexter took a deep breath. “Well, then—”

“Hang tight.”

“I don’t think I like this method of communication,” Dexter muttered.

Aria took over. “The room you’re in was made to detach and float to the surface in an emergency. She’s trying to change the sigils controlling its position.”

“Xun and Modeste?”

“Covering,” said Aria. “We ran into a bit of trouble on the way in. Most of the precinct’s been turned out to mop up the Old Guard. We’re going to have a hell of a time figuring out who was complicit and who was just strung along, and who didn’t do anything but complain.”

“Any word on what’s happening in Ireland?”

“They didn’t say. Did you find what you were looking for?”

“And then some,” Dexter admitted, glancing back toward the desk. There came a clunk from somewhere along the windows, and Dexter’s gut tightened. “How’s it going?” There was no answer. “Aria?”

He checked the sigil. It wasn’t glowing. Something wet hit his foot and he looked down, and swore. There was water on the floor. He moved to the windows and saw some vents had opened at the bottom, and the ocean was sluicing in. That was going to be a problem.

Dexter looked across to the other passage and saw Aria in the window, waving to get his attention through the streams of bubbles rising from the vents. She signed: _‘Booby trap. Comm sigils broke.’_

_‘No, really?’_ he signed back. _‘My boat is leaking.’_

It was hard to see her expression from across ten feet of water and glass, but he was pretty sure she blanched. She turned and spoke to Bev, unseen by her side. Mentally Dexter filled in the blanks of Bev’s cussing. His feet were wet. The water had reached his ankles.

He looked around. How bad this turned out would depend on how strong the windows were. If they could hold up, the pressure of the air might be enough to balance out the water-level. He frowned. Come to think of it, the air should have started thinning a long time ago, and it hadn’t. Dexter looked out the window, and this time looked up, and saw the bubbles rising from the top of the office’s cradle. Some of the sigils inside must transfer oxygen from the water into the room, and filter the carbon dioxide out.

If someone better versed in sigils were present, Dexter was sure they could use those sigils to equalise the pressure. Or at least make some sort of breathing mask.

_—Wait._

Dexter turned from the window and went to the first-aid cabinet built into the wall, and yanked it open. The items inside were neatly arranged, and only about half of them were recognisable. He tore through it, dumping things into the water, until he found the face-mask.

Shivering, he waded back to the window and waved to catch Aria’s eye, holding up the face-mask and pointing. _‘How does it work?’_

She mimed him to put it over his face, found a marker in her vest and drew a sigil on the window. He glanced down at the water approaching his waist, and then glanced at the door. The windows creaked. That answered that question.

Dexter took a deep breath and turned to Aira. _‘Tell Bev to open the door.’_

She gave him a thumbs-up and turned to speak to Bev, and a moment later turned back. _‘She can’t. It’s on your side.’_

Dexter peered up through the window. The surface was close enough that he could see the sunlight on the waves, as if through a very dirty window. A rapid ascent wasn’t going to be fun, but it wouldn’t immediately kill him. The symptoms of decompression sickness wouldn’t show for a couple of hours, and by then he’d know whether it was worth living or not.

_‘See you on the surface,’_ he signed at Aria, and waded toward the desk. The water was nearly at his chest. All the paper had turned to soggy messes, and the lightweight objects in the room were floating. The whole room seemed to be groaning, now, but he knew it was just the glass. The glass that created three of the four walls.

He’d have to wait until the room was fuller. There was still enough air that the weight of the water coming in through a suddenly broken window could disorientate or crush him. If he timed it right, and got underwater, he might be able to use that to suck him out through the window, and save him some energy. Then he looked around the room and changed his mind. He was more likely to get brained by a random piece of furniture if he tried.

Dexter grimaced as the waves of his movement made water lap up at his face. He stripped off his jacket and kicked off his shoes, and picked up the object on the desk. The cloth it was wrapped in snagged on the laptop. Dexter swore, swore again when he realised that the cloth was only going to help him drown, and shook it off.

The Sceptre’s crystal glowed and lit the water with eerie shadows as he touched it.

He took deep breaths. The desk was floating now. He climbed onto it to give him some height without having to swim, and had to duck so as not to hit his head on the ceiling. The water rose. It was above the cabinets, and fast approaching the roof. Dexter tucked the Sceptre under his arm and looked at the face-mask. He found the sigil Aria had given him and fit the mask over his head, tugging on the cord to pull it tight. When he touched the sigil and breathed in, he felt air on his face.

The office was almost full. Dexter ducked his head under the water, blinking away the sting of salt in his eyes, and steadied himself on the ceiling using the Sceptre as he reached out his empty hand. He charged a bolt, let it build for three more seconds than he actually wanted to, and then fired at the window.

Glass cracked and the water rippled with the heated backlash, and Dexter grunted as it struck him, losing his purchase on the desk. The Sceptre glowed and black lightning crackled, shot into the water and struck the glass. The glass dissolved into dust. Escaping air pulled and Dexter let the current take him, ducking to avoid the upper edge of the window.

The water was hot, nearly boiling, and he grit his teeth. His brain felt like it was too big for his head with the pressure. He swam for the surface, awkwardly with the Sceptre in his hand, with his heart pounding in his chest and his skin stinging. Even with the mask and the oxygen, it felt like an eternity before he broke the surface, his ears ringing and head throbbing, and feeling vaguely sick.

It took a moment but Dexter managed to get himself turned around, facing the city. The shore of Zhonghua District wasn’t far off. Limbs heavy with exhaustion, Dexter started swimming toward it, then heard a roar and squinted into the distance. There was a figure approaching on a waterbike. It took him a moment to realise it was Xun.

“What took you so long?” he grumbled as Xun cut the engine before they could collide.

“The bike isn’t fast enough,” said Xun, reaching down to pull him out of the water. Dexter clambered on behind him, dripping everywhere and ripping off the mask. Xun nodded at the Sceptre. “What’s that?”

“Far too much trouble for its own good,” Dex said. His phone chimed with missed calls and messages, and he fumbled for it in his wet pocket, keeping the Sceptre aimed well away from them both as Xun turned the bike toward the city. There were two dozen missed calls and messages from various Dead Men, Bliss, Digger, and one unknown number.

He frowned. He knew why the others were calling him, but who was the unknown number? That wasn’t a good sign. He didn’t bother with the messages, and rang it back. The first thing he heard was an explosive “ _Thank God_!”

“Renn?” he asked, startled.

“Yeah. Look, it’s bad, that redheaded bloke who can’t talk sent me over to get you but I don’t know where you are and the portal’s, like, _done_ , and—”

Redheaded bloke. Descry. Dexter started laughing. Descry had met Batu. Descry had known where he was.

“—oh my God, and now you’re crazy and I don’t know what to do—”

Dexter took a deep breath and managed to get hold of himself. “Renn. Listen. I’m on the water past Zhonghua. Meet me on the shore and take me to Ireland.”

“Okay,” said Fletcher, sounding hugely relieved and still rattled. “I’ll be waiting.”

He disconnected the call and Dexter leaned forward against Xun’s back to get his face out of the wind, and wished he had longer than two minutes to rest before he had to dive back into battle.

 

A Cleaver twisted in the air, unable to scream. Erskine threw a fireball at the Faceless One and then ducked behind the tractor, but he already knew it wasn’t going to do much good.

“G’day,” said Digger, leaning up against the tractor’s huge wheel.

“How’s your head?” Erskine asked, and Digger squinted at him.

“Eh?”

_‘How’s your head?’_ he signed instead.

“Ringing along beautifully. Bloody grenades.” She peered around the back of the tractor. “Dunno if you noticed, but we’re not having much luck pushing the buggers back.”

“Push them back to _where_?” Rover demanded from further along, unseen behind the machinery. He stuck out his hand to wave. “Hi, Erskine. Fancy meeting you here. I was beginning to think you were a gorgeously handsome hallucination I thought up.”

“I wasn’t gone that long,” Erskine grumbled.

“And now you’ve stolen my husband away,” Rover continued as if Erskine hadn’t answered. “I think I object to this.”

“Descry?” Anton asked from the shed, checking his machine-gun calmly. He was watching the trees, where one of the Faceless Ones had gone chasing someone Erskine hadn’t seen.

“Valkyrie and Bliss are getting him out in the Cleavers’ van,” Erskine said, and tried to smile. “At least when this is all over we might still have a Grand Mage.”

Provided he was still sane afterward. Erskine didn’t mention that part. He didn’t need to mention that part. Descry couldn’t read anything that didn’t have a physical brain, but now the Faceless Ones had them. None of them wanted to know what he was hearing. They might not get the choice.

“How many got through?” Saracen asked, looking pale. There came a snap from beyond the farmhouse’s yard, and he winced. The Cleavers were being decimated.

“Three.” It was Skulduggery who answered, quietly. Erskine still caught a flinch out of the corner of his eye, and glanced toward Ghastly. “One took Hanratty at the circle, and another Murder Rose.”

“The third took Krav,” said Erskine. “Is Gallow still here, or did he run away already?”

“Faster than a cockie with a fire up its ass,” said Digger. “If he’s lucky, he might be fast enough to get away from the Onsie followin’ him.”

“What do we do?” Tanith asked helplessly from somewhere on Erskine’s right.

“We’ve still got Descry’s book,” Erskine told her. “Creyfon’s taking a look at the circle and breaking the sigils to keep Renn out. If we can keep the Faceless Ones away from him long enough for him to change it, we might have a chance.”

“Oh, well, if _that’s_ all we have to do,” Rover muttered.

“Once they’re done with the Cleavers and the Hollow Men, they’re going to leave the farm if we don’t make ourselves known,” Skulduggery said. “Keeping Signate safe might not be as hard as keeping them within reach of the circle.” He paused. “What book?”

“Descry wrote a book to reverse summoning portals,” Ghastly said roughly, and there was a vaguely surprised pause before Skulduggery answered.

“Based on the _Key of Solomon_ , I suppose. Excellent. Now we just need to find and distract three Faceless Ones.”

“I might be able to help with that,” said Dexter, and Erskine whirled on his heels to see Dexter and Fletcher standing a few feet behind them. Dexter was sopping wet, without a jacket or shoes, and holding a sceptre.

Rover squealed, scurried across the ten feet separating them, and tackled Dexter in a hard enough hug to make him spin, holding the sceptre up so it didn’t whack anyone.

“Is that what I think it is?” Saracen demanded.

“If you think it’s the Sceptre, yes,” said Dex, hugging Rover back with one arm. “I spent three hours trapped in an underwater coffin with it. Believe me, the honeymoon period is over.”

“Ew, you’re all wet.” Rover pushed him away, brushing water out of his clothes. “You went swimming in the ocean without me? I object and demand recompense for after we’re done kicking some godly arse. Right, then, men—and women. What’s the plan?”

Erskine ignored him and looked at Fletcher. “Renn, see that van in the distance behind you?”

Renn jumped at being addressed, snapping away from his horrified stare at the field beyond the tractor. He was vaguely green. “Yeah?”

“That’s Bliss and Valkyrie getting Descry away from the farm. Catch up with them and take them as far into Dublin as you can. Then come back here. Creyfon’s going to need your help.”

“Okay.” He vanished.

“Righto,” said Digger. “There’s nine of us here. We could split three for three and go after the Onesies all at once.”

“No,” said Skulduggery. “Whichever groups don’t have Dexter in them will only wind up dead. If he can’t kill them all, then we’ll need them prepared to be drawn through the portal. That means we have to gather them together either in the trees or past the farmhouse. Somewhere on the farm.” His faceless skull turned toward Dexter. “I’m afraid that means you’ll have to be the bait. If anything’s going to draw the Faceless Ones’ attention, it’s the Sceptre.”

“Joy,” Dexter muttered. “And I can’t even conjure shoes.”

“Do you have a plan, then?” Tanith asked coldly.

“Yes,” said Skulduggery. “I do.”


	26. Killing gods

Valkyrie leaned over Descry, keeping him on the van’s bench as they rode over bumps and stones. He was breathing, but his eyelids flickered and he was tense all over, and there was a low whine in his throat even asleep. If it weren’t for the sigil Erskine had drawn on his forehead, he’d have woken up for sure.

The van slowed and pulled up by the fence, but before Valkyrie could ask why Fletcher opened the rear door and climbed in. He looked shaken.

“Did you find Dex?” Valkyrie demanded.

“Yeah,” said Fletcher. “That Ravel bloke told me to get you back to Dublin.”

“Can you Teleport a vehicle?” Bliss asked from the front seat, pulling away from the fence.

“I don’t know,” said Fletcher. “I’ve never tried.”

“Have you been to Dublin previously?”

“Yeah?”

“Take us as near to the old Hibernian Cinema as you can.”

“Okay.” Fletcher took a deep breath. “Okay.” He looked around at the van’s inside, looking lost, and then gingerly put his hand on the ceiling and the wall and took another breath. Valkyrie didn’t see any change, but she heard the sound of traffic and a sudden medley of horns. Bliss grunted approvingly.

Valkyrie was watching Hopeless. He took a quivering breath and then went suddenly limp, like everything making him tense had vanished. “I think we’re out of range!”

“You may remove the sigil,” said Bliss. Valkyrie concentrated, conjuring enough water to wet her fingers and rubbing the mark off Descry’s forehead. He drew in a breath and opened his eyes, and blinked a few times.

“Descry?” Valkyrie asked softly. She wasn’t even sure he was going to know who she was. What if reading the Faceless Ones’ minds turned him insane?

Victory shone in his eyes, and he almost smiled. Then his face lined with pain, and he grunted. She grinned. “Hi. Yeah, you’re alive. And sane, I hope. We’re getting you to Kenspeckle, okay?” Gingerly she reached out to stroke his hair like one of the other Dead Men would have. “Try to get some rest. We’ll be there soon.”

He took a breath and nodded slowly, and closed his eyes. Valkyrie sighed and took the seat over his head, keeping her hand in his hair.

“Is he okay?” Fletcher asked uncertainly, sitting opposite them.

“Well, he looked up at me and kind of answered, so I think that’s a good sign,” Valkyrie guessed. “But if anyone can help him, it’s Kenspeckle.” She just hoped they’d be able to make it worthwhile, and not find themselves destroyed by Faceless Ones in the meantime.

 

“I object to this plan,” Dexter muttered, and let his head drop back against his tree. “I object _strenuously_ to this plan.”

“Then you shouldn’t have gone and bonded with the Sceptre,” Rover scolded at a stage-whisper from a tree ten feet away. “If you go and get yourself killed or rendered insane, _I’m_ the one who’s going to be objecting strenuously. I need my husband. I need my Dex-shaped pillow.”

“Bloody hell,” Digger muttered. “Why aren’t you lot _dead_ yet?”

“Oh, good. Your hearing’s coming back.”

Dexter peered around his tree and caught a glimpse of Ghastly further up ahead. Ghastly glanced back and signalled, and Dexter exhaled. “It’s up ahead.”

“Don’t die,” Rover told him. “Or go insane. Or half insane. Or partly insane. Or—”

“I’ll keep that in mind.” Dexter slid out from behind the tree and into the short strip of grass between the trees and the paddock beyond. They were going after the Faceless One furthest from the farm. It was regarding the fence-line. Or at least, he was pretty sure it was regarding the fence, because a moment later it lifted its hand and blew the fence apart.

Dexter stepped out from the trees and levelled the Sceptre and remembered how easily it had responded when he wanted to just break a window. The Sceptre glowed. The Faceless One turned and saw him. Black lightning shot out and engulfed it, and even though it had no mouth it shrieked with rage and pain. Dexter focussed, sending magic to his palm. The Sceptre sucked it up and the bolt of lightning continued unbroken. The Faceless One’s scream became high-pitched, ringing in his ears.

There was a flash and the Faceless One turned to dust, and the lightning stopped. There was a pause in which everything was very quiet and still, and Dexter found himself holding his breath.

“Dex,” said Saracen from the trees. “Run.”

Fleetingly Dexter wondered how horrible his death had been before he turned and bolted into the trees. Anton’s shoes felt tight and uncomfortable, and slowed him down.

“Faster!” Saracen shouted. “Don’t stop!” Dexter shoved aside anything except his sprint through the woods, letting his arms pump and his body settle into that familiar rhythm. His ears popped and it _hurt_ , and he wasn’t sure if that was because of the Faceless Ones or the ocean pressure. Out of the corner of his eye he saw a figure moving through the trees toward him. He put on some speed, and then saw a bloom of flames, and the Faceless One was distracted. Not for long. Just for long enough.

There was a hail of gunfire to his other side, but he didn’t pause to see who had engaged the second Faceless One. That they were flanking him was bad enough. No wonder Saracen had told him to run fast. The woods weren’t wide, but they were wide enough, and he felt himself slow, his energy running down after his swim earlier.

_Don’t stop,_ Saracen had said. Well, Dexter had no intention of _stopping_. He just didn’t want to know what would happen if he slowed down.

“Light your ass on fire, Vex!” Digger hollered, over the sound of snapping trees and flames roaring. Dexter pushed himself harder. His feet were in agony in the unfamiliar shoes and wet socks. The Sceptre was awkward in his hand. The trees were thinning around him, and his head ached with how often his ears were popping.

Somewhere near the end of the last line of trees, he caught sight of Tanith. She signed: _‘Don’t stop.’_

That meant Signate wasn’t done yet, and Dexter had to pace himself without dying. Wonderful.

Dexter burst out of the trees and sprinted across the field, and saw Signate crouched by the circle. Erskine was with him, drawing sigils from the book. Dexter bypassed them at an angle, enough that hopefully the Faceless Ones wouldn’t notice or care about them.

His chest was burning. His ears popped again, and his heart hammered with unreasoning fright. Fletcher Renn, looking terrified, appeared ten feet to his right with Skulduggery. Fletcher vanished. Skulduggery snapped his fingers and summoned fire and threw it at the Faceless One on Dexter’s tail. In the moment that it was distracted, Dexter whirled and raised the Sceptre.

He was startled by how close behind him the Faceless One was, half obscured by Skulduggery’s flames bending around it. Too close. The Sceptre’s crystal glowed but the Faceless One struck him and Dexter went flying, and hit the ground hard. He felt a crunch in his chest and gasped, and pushed himself up shakily. The Sceptre landed ten feet away.

Rover was running toward him in the distance, and he flung out his hands and the Sceptre flew toward Dexter. Dexter reached out for it but the Faceless One caught it and gripped it with two hands. Even without a face, Dexter could see the rage in every line of its stolen body. The golden rod twisted and began to crumble, and the black crystal glowed fiercely beneath the fingers tightening around it. It shattered and lightning spilled out, and the Faceless One dissolved into dust.

“Are you alright?” Skulduggery asked, kneeling by Dexter, and Dexter came aware of the scrape of bone in his chest with every heaving breath.

“No,” he managed, and tried not to cough. Skulduggery supported his back so he couldn’t lie down.

“Breath shallowly,” he said, and Dexter swallowed a laugh.

“I just—sprinted—three-hundred yards—and you want—”

“Stop talking,” Skulduggery ordered as Rover caught up and dropped to his knees beside them.

“Are you alive?” Rover demanded, putting his hands possessively on Dexter’s shoulders. “The Faceless Ones haven’t claimed you?”

“So long as—I don’t—get impaled by—my ribs,” Dexter managed.

“But the Sceptre is destroyed,” said Skulduggery. “Where’s the last Faceless One?”

“It was dancing with Anton and Digger,” said Rover, “back in the trees.”

“It might be enough time,” murmured Skulduggery. Fletcher appeared beside them with Tanith. “Ah. Good. Fletcher, go and get Anton and Digger.”

Fletcher paled so fast he looked like he might be sick. “Go get them? But they’re—I mean, the Faceless One—”

“If they stall it much longer it won’t be here in time for the portal to open,” said Skulduggery. “Or they might get killed. We don’t want either to happen. Go and get them.” Still looking sick, Fletcher vanished. “Tanith, help Rover move Dex to that tractor over there.” Skulduggery’s faceless gaze turned down to Dexter. “Sorry, but you’re out. You’re no help to us if your lungs get impaled.”

“After what I—did for you all,” Dexter said weakly, lifting his arm so Tanith could get under it and they could help him to his feet. His ribs shifted even as carefully as he rose, and he bit back on a groan.

“You know, this is the second time you’ve hurt your ribs in three days,” Rover told him as they helped him limp toward the tractor. “I think I’m going to have to rethink your curfew, young man.”

“We’ll talk about it—tomorrow,” Dexter mumbled. They had just reached the tractor when someone screamed behind them and their ears popped. Dexter slid his arms from around their shoulders and fell against the tractor’s side, and gasped breathlessly, “Go.”

They turned and ran—back toward the last Faceless One.

 

Erskine’s fingers were almost rubbed raw from snapping his fingers. The smell of burned soil was in his nose, the sigils scorched into the earth. Signate moved counter to him, using a knife to change the sigils they could save. Peregrine’s body was slumped where they’d dragged it out of the way. The ritual had proven too much for him.

Someone screamed and Erskine’s head jerked up, and Fletcher appeared by them, so pale his few freckles were standing out. The ground shuddered and cracked.

“Are you nearly done?” Fletcher demanded frantically.

“Sit there and shut up,” said Creyfon, his voice shaking as he pointed. Fletcher stumbled over to the Grotesquery, looking queasy as he looked down at it. “Ravel, I’ve got it. Just—go.”

Erskine snapped his fingers and fed heat to the fire, and whirled, and threw flames at the Faceless One. It was up to its knees in the ground. Or Hanratty’s knees, rather. Erskine didn’t feel all that much sympathy right now. The flames curled around it and left it untouched, but one of the other Elementals poured on the fire before it could die, so Erskine took a moment to take stock.

Digger had risen out of the ground, clutching a hand to her chest and grimacing. Ghastly was struggling to his feet, his scars stark against his pale face, and judging by the way he was moving he was the one who’d screamed. Skulduggery was the one feeding the fire, and a moment later Erskine joined him. Out of the corner of his eye Erskine caught Rover and Tanith running toward them.

The ground cracked and shook, and Erskine staggered. The flames burst outward and Erskine shouted at Signate and Fletcher to duck, and threw himself down. The fire rolled over him, and when he got back to his feet the Faceless One had yanked its legs out of the ground. It looked around at them all and its gaze landed on Skulduggery running at it, unimpeded by the fire. Skulduggery lifted his hands and twisted them, but the air flowed harmlessly around the Faceless One. With a wave of its hand he was flung across the field, and Erskine shot out his hands to dull the skeleton’s landing.

Rover conjured a ball of ice and threw it at the Faceless One’s feet and the Faceless One slid, losing its balance. Saracen found a good angle and fired the machine-gun at the ground around it, and when the Faceless One tried to catch itself the loose soil rolled out from under it. It went down and hit the ground, and Anton staggered closer, shaking violently. His chest tore open and the screaming Gist flew at the Faceless One.

“How many times has Anton used the Gist?” Erskine demanded of Skulduggery as he helped the groaning skeleton to his feet.

“I think this is the third time,” Skulduggery said, gripping his left arm. He popped it back into place with a yelp, and took a breath. “Between the two of them the woods are nearly gone.”

“My heart bleeds for the landowner.” Erskine glanced over his shoulder at the circle. Signate was trembling hard as he drew, and Fletcher looked a tad singed, but his hands were on the Grotesquery. “You realise we’re going to need to get the Grotesquery through with it.”

“We’ll figure something out,” Skulduggery said, moving toward the battle.

Erskine turned around and saw the Gist raking the Faceless One’s skin, but its claws didn’t leave any marks and the Gist shrieked with rage. The Faceless One reached up and seized the cord binding it to Anton, and yanked him hard off his feet. Two separate layers of air collided around it, churning the ground and whipping up dust, and doing nothing at all.

The Gist slashed at the Faceless One’s head, but it yanked on the cord again, twisted it, gripped it with two hands as if to tear the cord in two. Anton screamed, a twisted sort of scream Erskine had never heard from him before.

Rover yelled something and threw ice at the Faceless One’s feet, but there was a crack where Digger had been and a moment later the Faceless One was yanked down into the ground again. Tanith sprinted toward it and cartwheeled over it, her sword flashing, but the blade shattered when it struck. The Faceless One looked at her and flicked a hand without releasing its grip, and Tanith was sent flying.

Erskine heard Creyfon shouting behind him, but he was running toward the others, throwing blades of air into the ground to make the Faceless One destabilise. Ghastly joined him, but Skulduggery aimed his blows at the Faceless One’s hands.

The Faceless One released the Gist and the Gist went sucking back toward Anton. Erskine saw it vanish into his chest. Anton convulsed and then slumped, trembling violently and coughing and wheezing. Erskine couldn’t tell if he was conscious.

“The portal!” Saracen shouted, and Erskine felt a tug at his back, like gravity. “Erskine, get out of the way!”

Ghastly turned toward him and pulled, and Erskine shoved the air behind him. To his surprise he felt the force of someone else’s nudge as well, and flew forward and collided with the tailor. Ghastly staggered, almost managed not to fall, but the portal’s gravity heightened suddenly and Ghastly went toppling over with Erskine on top of him. With a groan Erskine rolled and saw Skulduggery lower his hands. He saw Digger crawl out of the ground, clutching the tussocks of grass to resist the portal’s gravity.

A glowing yellow tendril shot out from the portal and wrapped around the Faceless One. It screamed and tore at the tendril, but others were reaching out now as well, wrapping around the Faceless One like chains. They yanked it off its feet and dragged it toward the portal, but tentacles burst from its chest and wrapped around trees, burrowed into the ground, to stop its hurtle backward.

It didn’t work. Branches snapped and furrows were dug into the ground, and the circle pulsed. More of those tentacles, made of organs and intestines, lashed out. One wrapped around Digger’s leg and she swore and clawed the ground, and crawled halfway into it. The tentacle pulled taut. Skulduggery drew his gun and fired at it, over and over, and the tentacle bucked, nearly yanking Digger out from her refuge.

Erskine found himself running before he could think, his heart pounding in his chest. He got close enough and used air to force Digger against the ground, and she rolled and pulled her pistol, and fired energy at the tentacle near her ankle, over and over, still clutching the earth. The Faceless One screamed again and the circle pulsed harder, its hum high-pitched. Creyfon was shouting something, but Erskine couldn’t hear it.

Skulduggery’s gun clicked empty. Digger’s didn’t, but it didn’t seem to do any good. Rover appeared by Erskine’s side and added to the force of his air holding Digger’s position, halting her slow slide. Her gunfire faltered and she screamed, and her leg twisted. The portal rippled and more of its tendrils reached out and wrapped around the Faceless One, slicing through its tentacles like blades.

“The Grotesquery!” Skulduggery shouted, stretching out his hands and tightening the air around Digger, adding to the force keeping her still. “Ghastly, the Grotesquery!”

Erskine caught flashes of Fletcher putting his hands under the Grotesquery and heaving, and Ghastly snapping up his hands to catch it on air and shove it into the portal. The tentacle holding Digger was cut and it snapped back around Skulduggery’s chest.

The portal sucked the Faceless One in and shrank as it went, and Skulduggery went with it. The last glimpse Erskine saw of him was his skull’s grin, and then the portal contracted and turned to nothing.

The silence was deafening. Erskine took a step and his knees buckled, and he crawled the rest of the way to Digger. She pushed herself up out of her rut, her knuckles nearly white around her pistol.

“Get it back open!” he heard Rover shout wildly at Creyfon and Fletcher.

“It’s too late,” Creyfon said, sounding numb and shocked. “It’s too late, we can’t open it without the Grotesquery.”

“I don’t care, get it open!”

“Rover—” Saracen started, sounding stricken.

“ _Get it open_!”

“Loud little bugger, isn’t he,” Digger whispered. Her sunglasses were cracked, and her cheeks were wet from tears of pain. Wordlessly Erskine took her around the shoulders and pulled her up onto his lap. He felt numb, but as if there was a hard core of something immovable and painful in his chest.

He looked up and saw the dust settling in the circle. Saw his friends and comrades clustering nearby, limping and injured and possibly dying, and with expressions of blank, shattered shock. Rover was the only one who seemed capable of moving, and he staggered into the circle, dropping to his hands and knees and screaming wordlessly into the ground.


	27. The task

Valkyrie watched Descry numbly. She couldn’t have imagined she’d feel the same thing twice in less than a year, and she was feeling it again. “Skulduggery is gone,” Erskine had told her, as flatly and blankly as she felt. “Dragged in by the Faceless One.”

Now she sat by Descry’s bedside, watching him sleep. Kenspeckle had healed the wounds on his head, but the burn was going to leave a scar. Kenspeckle hadn’t said anything about his mind. Valkyrie wasn’t even sure the professor knew about Descry’s mind-reading, so she hadn’t asked. She hadn’t even objected when the professor told her off for getting shot in the back, even though the bullets hadn’t gotten through Ghastly’s clothes.

He was tending to the others now. She’d asked that they didn’t contact her parents. Mum and Dad would have called off their anniversary for sure, and Valkyrie didn’t know whether she could handle them being all concerned and parental right now. She felt like she was in a completely different world to the one she’d known last night and she needed to figure it out before she could talk to her parents.

Erskine was sitting with her. He hadn’t said anything since he’d told her about Skulduggery. Saracen hadn’t said anything at all. Rover was slumped on a cot in a corner, staring at the floor. Ghastly had come into the room about half an hour ago. Someone had mentioned the Faceless One manipulating his blood vessels. He looked like a giant, fading bruise. Tanith had sat quietly on the same cot and taken one of his hands in hers.

Bliss was back at the Sanctuary. Fletcher had asked, in a very small voice, whether he could go back to the Tír, so Creyfon had taken him with. Digger was still being tended to. Kenspeckle had said she’d nearly had her leg torn completely off, and that it was lucky he was her doctor because otherwise she’d never be able to walk again. Valkyrie didn’t want to think about it.

Slow footsteps sounded and Valkyrie looked up to see Dexter pushing a wheelchair with Anton in it.

“How was recompression?” Saracen asked dully.

“Lonely.” Dexter pushed Anton up next to Rover, and Rover stirred to put a hand in Anton’s hair and grip it, as if Rover needed the anchor. Anton lifted his head. His eyes were bloodshot and he looked dazed, but after a few blinks his gaze focussed.

“Anton?” Saracen asked. Anton grunted.

“Kenspeckle said he’ll be back to his loquacious self within a day,” said Dexter, “sans the use of his Gist for a little while. Something about a magical backlash.” He sat on Rover’s other side and wrapped his arm around Rover’s back, and the Elemental leaned into him. “Descry?”

“He woke up when we got out of range,” Valkyrie said. Her voice sounded flat, but Dexter looked up at her, his face full of dread.

“And?”

Valkyrie shrugged. “And I think he recognised me? I don’t know. He looked happy, like he’d realised he was still alive, or something. It wasn’t even a minute.”

“What are the odds he might still be sane?” Dexter asked the air.

“I don’t understand,” said Tanith. “What happened to him?”

No one answered. Valkyrie looked around at the Dead Men. They all looked too tired and numb to explain. Then Saracen muttered, “He’s a mind-reader. No contact needed. He read the Faceless Ones’ minds and now he’s probably going to be insane, and—”

His voice cracked and he fell silent.

“Oh,” said Tanith, looking uncertain. She glanced up at Ghastly and then down again.

For a while there was heavy quiet. Then Saracen launched himself forward and caught himself on the edge of Descry’s bed, and peered down at Descry’s face with a desperate sort of hope. A moment later Descry let out a little sigh and his eyes creased, and then they opened.

“Dad?” Saracen asked, taking his hand. Tanith stared. Valkyrie stared.

“ _Dad_?” she blurted.

The Dead Men stirred and looked up with a varying range of hopefulness. Descry blinked up at Saracen and then smiled. It was small, forced and full of pain, but it was a smile.

“Dad,” Saracen whispered, his voice strangled. He clutched Descry’s hand and Descry grunted and lifted his other, and stroked Saracen’s head shakily. That seemed to be enough. Saracen let out a breath that sounded more like a relieved sob. Rover shot off his cot and leaned over Descry’s bed, his hands running through Descry’s hair, tears already in his eyes. Dexter got up and Anton pushed himself unsteadily out of the wheelchair to lean against the wall. Ghastly rubbed his face and Erskine rose and hovered by the foot of the bed.

Descry’s face creased all over, and his hand dropped so he could sign. _‘Skulduggery.’_

“I tried,” Saracen whispered, and Descry’s fingers came back up, brushing back his hair. Saracen’s shoulders shook and his voice became choked. “I couldn’t—I _tried_.”

Dexter put a hand on his back, and Valkyrie glanced at Tanith, feeling lost. Tanith looked nearly as lost as she felt, but relieved.

“You’re sane,” Anton said. “How?”

“Speaking for myself,” said Rover, “I don’t really care.”

Descry grunted, but he didn’t seem willing to take his hands back enough to answer. Saracen rested his forehead against his father’s shoulder and was quiet, but Valkyrie saw the tears and looked down at the floor.

“Maybe it was someone else,” said Erskine, and his voice was hollow. “He can hide behind mental constructs of other people. He must have hid behind someone else. They’d have gone insane. He didn’t.”

“He can do that?” Tanith asked, startled.

“It’s why Serpine couldn’t break him,” Dex answered. “You can’t break a person who isn’t mentally present for the torture.”

“Oh.”

For a long while there was quiet. No one spoke until Descry’s strokes slowed and stilled, and his eyelids drooped shut. Saracen pushed himself upright with a sniffle, rubbing his eyes, and arranged Descry’s hands more comfortably on his chest while he slept.

“Right,” said Rover in a tone that would have been brisk if his voice hadn’t wavered. “Now that Daddy’s asleep, it’s time for the children to discuss how they’re foolishly going to rescue their brother.”

Valkyrie’s heart skipped a beat, and she looked at him. He rubbed his face but when he straightened up his expression was determined.

“You want to—” Saracen stared at him. “You want to save Skulduggery? But you’ve barely looked at him in the last six months.”

Rover waved a dismissive hand. “I was an idiot. So was he. Water under the bridge, now we have to save him.”

“Do we?” Erskine asked, and everything went still. Valkyrie looked at him, but he was looking at Ghastly, and Ghastly wasn’t looking at anyone. “Even _if_ we could reopen the portal, how could we possibly find Skulduggery and get him away from the Faceless Ones without the Faceless Ones following us back through?”

“Since when would that have stopped us?” Rover demanded. Quietly Saracen got up and moved to the door, and closed it. “Since when have the odds _ever_ stopped us? We’re the Dead Men. We don’t leave one of us behind. We don’t _split up_.” Rover pointed accusingly at Erskine. “And don’t you _dare_ say we’re already split up, because the only reason we’re even close is because we’re all idiots who went around avoiding each other instead of _talking_.”

Valkyrie saw Erskine take a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Rover, the risk involves letting the _Faceless Ones_ back into our dimension. Do you think for a moment Skulduggery would _want_ us to try and save him?”

“You’re not asking that because you’re thinking about what Skulduggery would want,” Rover said angrily. “You’re asking that because you’re biased and you’re being stupid.”

“He murdered Ghastly’s mother,” Erskine said, very quietly and very controlled.

“ _I don’t care_!” Rover exploded almost on the heels of Erskine’s words, and the room went still with shock. This time Rover was the one who took a deep breath. “I don’t—” Another deep breath. “I don’t mean that I don’t care about—about Aoife.” His voice cracked. “I fell in love with Aoife the first time I met her. I care that she’s dead. I don’t care that Skulduggery was the one who killed her.”

Erskine shook his head in disbelief. “They’re the same thing. How can you—”

“Because I get why he did,” Rover cut him off. “I mean, I get why—why he was Vile. For the same reason that you were more angry at Descry than Skulduggery, Erskine. I mean—” He laughed, but there was no humour in it. “He spent all that time angry, and not knowing why he’d come back when his family hadn’t. When you get into a place that dark, you can’t see any way out. You can’t even see the point in asking for help, because it doesn’t occur to you that anyone could possibly see you in that darkness. So when you see an exit, no matter how awful it is, it’s the only thing you _can_ see, and you—you have to follow it.”

There were tears in his eyes by the time he’d finished, and everyone stared at him. Rover sniffed and wiped his eyes with his sleeve.

“What dark place have _you_ been in?” Erskine asked, but more gently than Valkyrie expected. Rover stared at the floor, hugging himself. He didn’t answer for so long that Valkyrie was sure he wouldn’t, but she still couldn’t look away.

“I was born in the tenth century,” he said in a very small voice. “At least, that’s when Descry thinks I was born. He’s not sure which decade, but he says the language and the architecture are about right.”

“The tenth—” Erskine shook his head. “You can’t have. You’d be over a thousand years old.”

“I used the earth power,” said Rover meekly, and Erskine stopped short. “I was thirteen the first time, because I was about to get stoned to death for being a witch. I must’ve been like that for nearly a century. I almost made it to thirty before people found out about my magic again. A couple of decades, that time.” He shrugged. “I travelled a lot. Sometimes I found people I liked and travelled with them, but they always—they never stayed.” He kicked at the floor, not meeting anyone’s eyes. “Sometimes I’d just … come out of it and go right back in. There didn’t seem to be a point in not, if nothing had changed. I figured if I just kept trying, maybe things would change enough that I wouldn’t be alone anymore. Or I’d die. I just didn’t have the stones to do it myself.”

“When did you stop?” Saracen asked, looking shaken.

Rover motioned in Anton’s direction. “I never did it when I was travelling with someone. It’s just that no one stuck around that long. Until Anton.” He looked up, and there was misery in every line of his face and tears in his eyes. “I couldn’t see any other way out, no matter how stupid it was. It was all I had. So I get why Skulduggery turned into Vile. But he didn’t _stay_ Vile, and he could have. It would’ve been the easiest thing to do and he didn’t do it. Just like letting Skulduggery stay where he is would be the easiest thing for us to do. But it’s not the right thing and you know it, and that has nothing to do with what Skulduggery did to Aoife.”

Erskine looked down at the floor and for a long time there was silence. Rover looked away from him, to Ghastly. “You know it’s right, Ghastly. You know it is.”

Ghastly pulled his hand away from Tanith and rose, and walked out the door. He didn’t look back.


	28. Crisis of faith

Shadows moved in the Gaol. They wisped down between the cells and congregated outside the last cell, and deepened. Then there were people there instead, a man and a woman. The man had a flintlock pistol on his thigh and the woman had a cloak over her shoulders which writhed at the edges.

Annunziata stepped forward to meet them, frowning. “You should not be here.”

“We were needed,” said the woman. “Annunziata of the Italian Temple, correct?”

“Yes,” said Annunziata. “But you should not—”

“We’ve more right than you,” said the man. “You’re not even Irish.” He strode past her to the cell, and looked through the bars at the man inside.

“Baritone,” said Solomon. He was sitting on the edge of the cot, his gaze a blank stare at the opposite wall. He put his hand down and found the shirt folded on the bed, and shook it out, his fingers working along the hem and collar to find the sleeves. “And Pandemona. Whyever are you here?”

Baritone looked surprised. “We heard you were catatonic.”

“He awoke nearly a week ago,” said Annunziata, “after the trouble with the raid.”

“Where are you going?” asked Pandemona.

“Elsewhere,” said Solomon, awkwardly pulling on his shirt. “The Council of Elders feels I would be better served in another location.”

“Why haven’t you returned to the Temple?” Baritone demanded. “We’ve needed you. We’ve needed a rational leader to prevent the petty bickering.”

“I’ve been awake barely a week, Adrian,” said Solomon, slowly fastening the shirt while feeling for each button. “What do you expect me to have done? Cleric Quiver has a sound mind.”

“Cleric Quiver has acceded to Cleric Craven.”

Solomon jerked. “He’s done what?”

“It’s been five months,” said Pandemona, “and we’ve spent most of it squabbling. I suppose Quiver felt the conflict was too dangerous to continue. He’s talked most of the high clerics around, and Craven is the one likely to win.” She stepped closer to the bars. “But if _you_ returned, Solomon, it would be different. You could become High Priest.”

“Me?” Solomon laughed. “Look at me, Pandemona. I’m a blind man no longer capable of using his magic.”

“You’re the Death Bringer,” said Pandemona, and Solomon laughed again, slightly harder this time. “You are,” she insisted. “Who else could command Lord Vile’s own armour? It’s submitted to your will.”

“No,” said Annunziata quietly. “The armour has been locked inside of him with sigils.”

“Is that what those are for?” Baritone leaned against the bars and studied Solomon’s chest through the open shirt. “And you say you’re no longer in possession of magic?”

“In possession,” said Solomon, “but unable to use it. It’s my magic keeping the armour contained.”

“And the place they’re sending you—you’d learn to control it there?” Solomon didn’t answer in favour of buttoning of his shirt. Baritone smiled. “You might not be the Death Bringer yet, Wreath. But by the time you return, you will be.”

“Don’t,” said Solomon. “Don’t pursue this. Don’t be ridiculous.”

“It’s only ridiculous because you’ve never held ambition for your own sake,” said Baritone. “That’s why I like you. You aren’t a self-righteous fool like Craven, and you won’t slink about in the background like Quiver. You’re different to most clerics, Wreath. Most of them just have fear. You’ve got faith as well, and the drive to do what is necessary.”

“That’s why we’ll wait for you,” added Pandemona. “The Temple has been stagnant for too long. It needs to change. We know that. Others suspect, and are too afraid to act. But you’re the only one who’s been willing to lead us into it.”

“You’re both idiots,” said Solomon.

Pandemona smiled. “So you say, and yet still we’ll prepare for your return. You’re a leader, Wreath, whether you meant to be or not.”

There came a thud from down the passage, and the Necromancers turned. “The Cleavers are coming to escort us,” said Annunziata. “You’d best leave. I must attend to Cleric Wreath.”

“Attend him well, Cleric of the Italian Temple,” said Baritone, stepping away. “When you return, it is the Irish Temple who will claim the honour of receiving the Death Bringer into its halls.”

In a swirl of shadow they were gone.

 

Erskine stood just down the drive, where the taxi had dropped him off, and watched the chickens cluck in Descry’s garden. Everything was damp and dewy from the drizzle earlier and the field smelled of wet earth. It looked peaceful. Almost surreal. Erskine had thought, in his lifetime, he had felt the worst things it was possible for a person to feel. He’d thought he’d experienced the lowest of the low.

The last week had reset his perception of ‘low’.

It took more effort than he would have thought possible just to take a step, but once he’d taken it, the rest came more easily. Erskine moved across the clearing and up the garden path, and used his key to enter. It wasn’t late enough for there to be a fire, but there was one lit in the living-room nevertheless. Erskine bypassed it and the empty office, and went into the kitchen.

Descry was in there, doing something on the table, and Erskine stopped in the doorway. His heart pounded and his mouth was dry, and it felt like his mind had frozen up. Descry stilled and rested his fists on the table as though he was overcome with a bout of dizziness.

“I’m sorry,” Erskine said quickly, and took a breath. He didn’t know where to start, so he picked a place and plunged headlong into things. “About—everything. I know it’s been hard. For all of us, but for you especially, _because_ it’s been so hard for all of us. And we’ve been stupid. We’ve been ignoring each other, and ignoring our feelings, and of course that always makes it worse for _you_ —”

His voice cracked and Erskine had to stop and glance away, clearing his throat. “The fact is that—the fact is that I’ve been miserable. We all have. It’s so easy to be angry. At Skulduggery. At you. But I can’t—Descry, you’re the reason I’m still _sane_. You’re the reason I can even recognise anything worthwhile in my life. You’re one of those things. Since Skulduggery was … I can’t keep pretending I’m alright without you. I’m not, and trying to pretend is only making things worse.”

Erskine looked back toward Descry and opened his mouth to continue, then stopped. Descry’s back was quivering, and he’d pressed a hand to his mouth.

“Descry?” Erskine moved forward to touch Descry’s shoulder. That was when he saw the prescription and the white paper bag on the table. He turned it so he could read the label.

Something cold started in Erskine’s stomach and worked its way up to his chest. Descry didn’t take drugs for his head anymore. They didn’t work, or his tolerance was too high, or worse things would happen if he took the risk. “If I’m not mistaken, oxycodone is an opioid,” he said, very quietly, and glanced sidelong. “What are you doing with an opioid painkiller, Descry? Why, out of all the pain medications you could possibly try, would you choose an opioid?”

Descry didn’t answer. His hand was still to his mouth, but he was taking deep, slow breaths. Shaky breaths. And he wasn’t looking at Erskine.

“No,” Erskine said abruptly, and his voice came out slightly strangled. Deep breath. “No, we’re not doing this again. Not again. Not now. Not ever. Give it to me, Descry.” He took the prescription and put it in the paper bag, and held out his hand. “Give it to me.”

At first Descry didn’t move. Then he jerkily reached out and dropped a plastic jar into the bag. Erskine closed his fingers around the whole package and channelled heat to his palm until he smelled pills burning, and when they weren’t much more than ash and melted plastic he dumped the whole lot in Descry’s trash.

When he straightened up and turned, Descry still wasn’t looking at him. He had that fragile tremble in his body which indicated he was on the verge of losing all composure.

And it was his fault, Erskine realised. Not because he was here now, but because of how long he had spent avoiding Descry completely. Because the Dead Men _were_ what kept Descry sane and he had been forcibly deprived of that for six months, and it had taken losing one of them for Erskine to realise.

Descry made a strangled noise and Erskine pushed that thought away to go to him, wrapping an arm around his back and leading him up the stairs. Descry’s bedroom was just opposite, so Erskine took him in there and let him go long enough to stack the pillows against the headboard.

What he was about to do felt almost like he was usurping Descry’s rightful place. It was something Descry had done for him for years after Mevolent had taken him. Descry had held him through every nightmare, through every night. Descry had made sure he slept when he could. He’d ensured Erskine could weep when he needed. He’d made sure Erskine was never alone. He’d been everything Erskine needed him to be just to claw through the darkness and come out the other side as a man he didn’t hate, and Erskine had never needed to ask.

Tonight it was Erskine’s turn.

He kicked off his shoes and climbed into the bed, settling himself comfortably against the pillows. When he held out his hands, all the tension in Descry’s body snapped. Descry folded into himself and crawled onto the bed, and even before he buried his face in Erskine’s shoulder he was sobbing. His whole body shook with them and he clung to Erskine, clutching his shirt. Erskine wrapped his arms around him and stroked his hair and temple, exactly the same way Descry had used to do.

“Do you remember the first time we met?” he asked conversationally. Descry had always hummed hymns. Erskine didn’t know any hymns, but he could talk. “Corrival dragged me to Meritorious’s townhouse without explaining why, and I got in trouble for making innuendo within two minutes of having stepped in the door. And then there was his creepy valet who insisted on walking in my blind-spot …”

He could talk for a long time. And he would, for as long as Descry needed.

 

Saracen pushed down the handle with his elbow and shouldered his way into the Hotel’s lobby without dropping any of the pizza boxes or Chinese cartons. “Dinner’s served,” he said with as much cheer as he could possibly muster. It fell flat in a nearly empty lobby. Especially since Anton was on the phone. Saracen’s stomach dropped and he rested the pizza boxes on the counter. “Tell them ‘no vacancies’.”

Anton held up his hand. “Yes,” he said. “We’ll be here.” He glanced up. “Saracen, where’s Erskine?”

“With Descry.”

“Most of us will be here,” Anton said into the phone. “We’ll see you then.” He set down the phone. “That was Ghastly.”

Saracen straightened up, his heart skipping a beat. “That was _Ghastly_? He’s calling you? Why? What did he say? Where’s he been? Is he—I mean, does he need our help?”

“He’s coming here to talk to us about Skulduggery,” said Anton, and it was only because Saracen knew him so well that he could see the surprise. It was in the crinkle in his brow and the slowness of his words. Saracen couldn’t do anything but stare.

“Really? Willingly? Tonight?”

“He said he’s found a lead on Skulduggery’s original skull to use as an Isthmus Anchor.”

The pound of Saracen’s heart turned to a sick feeling travelling from his gut to his throat. “He’s coming so we can figure out how to get the skull so we can save Skulduggery.” Anton nodded slowly, still gazing down at the phone. “And you didn’t—you didn’t tell him?”

“This isn’t the sort of thing you tell a person over the phone,” Anton said softly. If it had been anyone else, _anyone_ , Saracen would have said they were delaying a horrible moment. But it was Anton. Anton didn’t delay just because he dreaded something.

Without a word Saracen picked up the pizza boxes and carried them toward the garage. Originally, Anton’s blueprints of the Hotel hadn’t had room for a garage. Rover insisted there should be one if only so he could tinker. Dozens of cars had passed through it. Most of them were stashed in various places around the world. Saracen still remembered Skulduggery dithering over buying the Bentley for so long that the Dead Men became genuinely afraid someone else would buy it first. They’d bought it themselves and stored it here, in Rover’s garage, until Skulduggery decided he wanted it after all.

Dexter’s voice came through the closed door. “—down and actually _marathon_ the show. Even Anton needs to sleep. If we plan well enough and get better locks I’ll bet we can get him out of the way long enough to actually watch a few episodes in one sitting.”

Saracen shouldered the door open. “I’m home,” he called, and it came out flat. He tried again. “I’m home!” There. That was better. It sounded almost … bouncy. “I’m home and I even have provisions!”

“Excellent,” said Dexter. “We’ve starving.”

“Oh, good.” It was a complete and total lie, Saracen knew. None of them were hungry. But he didn’t know what would happen if any of them acknowledged the truth. Not now. He lugged the food around the side of the blue sedan with the chipped paint, where Dexter and Rover sat in the very corner of the garage, beside the workbench. Dexter rose up on his haunches to take one of the pizza boxes, and he shook it in front of Rover’s nose.

“See? Told you Saracen would bring back good food.” The smell of cheese and pepperoni, sausage and roasted tomato filled the air.

“By the way,” said Saracen, trying for upbeat and only managing to make his voice crack. “Ghastly called Anton.” Dexter’s head jerked up. “He’s coming around within the next few hours with a bead on Skulduggery’s original skull, so we can use it as an Isthmus Anchor.”

Dexter stared at him, looking sick, and abruptly sat down with a sound torn between being a laugh and a sob, burying his face in his hands. Saracen clutched the rest of the boxes and looked at Rover, but Rover didn’t answer. He didn’t even look up. He hadn’t, in fact, for almost a week.

That was because Rover was curled stationary in the corner, his arms around his knees and his face a granite mask with two dark lines of stone that had once been tears.


End file.
